The NCIS Jedi
by The Dark Scribbler
Summary: A crime scene. An NCIS team. Oh, and a Jedi. Now complete!
1. Chapter 1

Yes, I know, I have to upload the next chapter of the Terran Jedi. But it kind of died in a dryer in The Dalles, Oregon after I left my USB drive in the pocket of some rather damp jeans. I'm writing it again, honest! But then this damn thing fell into my mind, distracting me from my many other writing projects (which include two books on Amazon now, thank you!) and I had to write the damn thing down. Yes, it's a part of the Jedi Harris-verse. A future part, in a way...  
Oh, and I do not own these characters.

* * *

It was dusty on the roof beam. Not particularly comfortable as well, but it was the best that he could do for the time being. He was hidden from view from below and that was the important thing. He could also take the time to think over what he'd done the previous night now that he'd woken up from the healing trance he'd gone into to make up for missing a night's sleep.

The Brits had a saying for when something was both good and bad – a Curate's Egg. He'd looked it up once and it went back to some old cartoon from the late Nineteenth Century. Well, the previous night had definitely been a Curate's Egg.

He'd been on patrol when he'd seen the car full of vampires and their unconscious victims drive by. Two women, both in uniform. It had turned out that they were both Petty Officers from the USS Abraham Lincoln, on liberty in what had turned out to be the wrong part of town. Both had been knocked out by the vampires, who it turned out had been minions for a particularly insane master vampire.

He'd met said master vampire in the warehouse where he was now sheltering. Kind of. Ok, he was hiding. Having followed the minions to the place he'd discovered their boss putting the finishing touches to a pentagram that was obviously designed to summon up something nasty by adding a lot of blood.

Luckily the following battle had been quite short and sweet – he'd dusted the vampires near the prisoners first with his lightsabre, before moving on to the rest of them. The master vampire had spent most of his time shrieking curses at him before pulling out 'The Sword of Grapatulous', if he'd heard the name pronounced correctly. Sadly the sword had not performed according to the master vampire's expectations, because his lightsabre had cut straight through it, removing his head a microsecond later.

So score one for the good guys – all the vamps dusted, a summoning ceremony thwarted, two innocent women saved. Unfortunately one of the CPOs, the brunette, had been hit so hard that she had bleeding on the brain, so he'd had to pause long enough to put her into a Jedi healing trance in order to save her life. He'd succeeded, but by taking so long to heal her, the other CPO had had enough time to recover. And when she had woken up she had been, well, a bit pissed. Understandably so.

The moment that she'd been sufficiently awake enough to stand up she'd been on her feet, looking wildly around. He'd tried to calm her down a bit, but she'd been rather unwilling to listen and he hadn't been able to stop her from running for the doors as she pulled out her cellphone and dialled 911.

By the time that he'd heard the first sirens the injured CPO had been well out of danger and had been sleeping peacefully. Naturally there was only one way into or out of the warehouse, so the moment that he'd seen the first flashing lights outside he'd force-leapt straight up into the roof beams. And he'd been there for the past hour.

He sighed silently. He'd heard the Metro police officers arrive in a blaze of sirens and noise, he'd heard the other CPO babble confusedly at them, he'd heard the equally confused statements from the other CPO as she woke up. He'd heard everything. Including the lead Sergeant state, with an interesting amount of annoyance, that they'd have to call in the assholes from NCIS on this case. At which point he'd put himself into that brief Jedi healing trance in order to recharge his batteries.

He knew what was going to happen next. The duty team from NCIS would be sent, they'd liaise with Metro, they'd talk to the witnesses and then they'd enter the warehouse. The problem was that he had an unpleasant feeling who the duty team was made up of.

And sure enough he heard two rather familiar voices approaching. One was whining.

"..can't believe that I cut my fricking finger on that damn fence! Do you think I should get Ducky to take a look at it when we get back? I mean what if I get tetanus? Does Ducky have any tetanus shots boss? I mean… oh. Shutting up now, boss."

"Thank you so much, DiNozzo. And by the way that's a brand new fence and there aren't any horses in the area that I can see, so you can stop worrying about dying of tetanus any time soon."

"Thanks boss. Where's Ziva?"

"Talking to the witnesses. Where's McGee?"

"Ah. I don't know boss. I rang his apartment – no answer. Rang his cell as well, but no answer."

The figure on the roofbeam frowned slightly. That reminded him. His own cellphone was in his pocket – wasn't it? He felt the pocket and then closed his eyes. Sithspit. It must have fallen out during the fight with the master vampire.

"Yeah well, that reminds me. Metro officers said that they'd heard a cellphone ringing in here earlier on, when they were sweeping the place for the attackers. Said that they hadn't looked for it as they wanted to leave the crime scene to us."

"Nice of them. Whoa – weird pattern on the floor there boss. We dealing with more whackjobs?"

"Could well be, DiNozzo, could well be. Dusty in here. Odd. Try McGee again on his cell. I want him here."

"On it boss." There was a pause. "It's ringing."

A noise broke the silence. Music. The Imperial March actually, from the soundtrack to The Empire Strikes Back.

"Hey," DiNozzo said, "I know that ringtone!" Footsteps rang across the floor as he walked over to one side, where some broken packing cases lay and then there was the sound of wood being moved. "I found the cellphone boss," DiNozzo said in a deadly serious tone of voice. "It's McGee's."

On his uncomfortable perch on the roof beam Timothy McGee pulled a face. He was in so much trouble.


	2. Chapter 2

"Did Metro PD search this place properly boss?"

"They said they did," Gibbs replied tersely and McGee winced slightly. His Boss sounded annoyed, worried and more terse than usual, always a bad sign. "According to them those offices at the back are empty."

There was a brief silence. McGee counted to ten in his head and on the stroke of 'ten' he heard the sound of two guns being pulled of their holsters followed by stealthy footsteps heading towards the offices – the very empty offices – at the back of the warehouse.

McGee stretched out with the Force and then sighed slightly. No, there were still too many people near the entrance – and he could feel that tightly-bound bundle of energy that was Ziva David approaching. Ah well, so much for a fast exit.

Judging by the sound of approaching voices from the back of the warehouse he'd guess that the Boss and DiNozzo had rapidly discovered that the offices at the back – all two of them – were indeed empty, apart from a lot of mouse droppings and the dessicated corpse of a rat.

"What is wrong?" The Israeli NCIS agent had obviously caught sight of the faces of the other two.

"We found this over there by that wall," DiNozzo said in a clipped tone. "It's McGee's phone. He was here at some point last night."

"_McGee_ was here?" Ok, there was a bit too much surprise in her voice. Then: "Well, that might explain part of what the witnesses told me. Not all though – they must have concussion or something."

"What did they say?" Gibbs asked before snapping: "DiNozzo, if that damn finger's bothering you so much go see the paramedics taking care of the witnesses."

"I'm too tough for that boss," came the wounded reply and McGee grinned at the ceiling.

"Chief Petty Officers Abigail Harrison and Cynthia Hernandez, both from the USS Abraham Lincoln, both on liberty and at 11pm last night both looking for a bar about ten blocks away from here that Hernandez had known when she was last stationed here," Ziva said, no doubt from memory. "Instead they met a group of men with what they both described as facial deformities, who knocked them both out and brought them here.

"They were both hit pretty hard, but Hernandez woke up for long enough to see the men who had kidnapped them talking to another man in a strange black robe and similar facial deformities. And then, ah, the concussion kicks in, because she said that the next thing she heard was the sound of a 'lightsabre' coming on and then a fight. Then she became unconscious again."

"A lightsabre," Gibbs said in a flat voice. "From Star Wars?"

"Apparently so, Gibbs. Concussion, as I said."

"Did she say which colour? Because it might have been one of… shutting up now Boss."

"Thank you DiNozzo. What else did they say Ziva?"

"Well, Harrison was unconscious the whole time. Paramedics say that they thought that she might have a severe concussion, due to the length of time she was out. They're taking them both to hospital in a few minutes. Hernandez however woke up again. She said that there was no sign of any of the men who had kidnapped them both, or the leader. She did however said that there was a brown-haired man kneeling by Harrison and apparently tending to her wound. She said he had green eyes and that he tried to reassure her that she was safe now."

"Green eyes, brown hair – it could be McGee boss," DiNozzo broke in quietly.

"Yeah, but why was he here in the first place and how did he come to lose his phone. And where the hell is he? Ziva, have you got a picture of McGee on your phone?"

"I believe so yes. You want me to show it to Hernandez?"

"And quickly, before they leave for the hospital. DiNozzo, lets take look at that weird diagram and try and see if we can work out what the hell happened here."

"Yes Gibbs.

"On your six, Boss."

Hmmm. McGee didn't like the fact that they were going to take a look at that pentagram. It was definitely to be used to summon something or someone and even without the blood sacrifice there might be wards around it and-

He sat up suddenly and then stared at DiNozzo, who was still fussing over his wounded finger. The NCIS agent was staring at it – and then caught sight of Gibbs glaring at him, whereupon he shook his hand in what he evidently hoped was a nonchalant gesture. But that wasn't what got McGee so concerned, because in that one shake of a hand he'd released at least one drop of blood. Which fell on the pentagram.

Damn it, he was so going to kick Tony's butt. Because the blood fell in exactly the wrong place. It flashed briefly and then the stored magic within it activated itself. The pentagram glowed suddenly with a dark light that looked so very wrong to the eye and then it _moved_, rotating within itself like an insane gearing mechanism designed by a mind that operated using the wrong set of dimensions. A howling void leapt into life for a microsecond above the pentagram and McGee surged to his feet, summoning the Force in a desperate effort to shatter the floorboards that the pentagram was painted on before it could fully activate.

He failed. The void crackled once before the eyes of the two startled men and the alarmed Jedi above them and then there was a 'paf' of displaced air as a hunched figure suddenly occupied the middle of the pentagram.

Sithspit, McGee thought as he pulled out his lightsabre and started to run along the roof beam, that master vampire had either gotten his summoning amounts horribly wrong or he'd just been into a lot of blood. Or perhaps he's been hoping to summon an army of those things. Which looked and felt very nasty, very nasty indeed, because all of a sudden the huddled figure was straightening itself, unfurling night-black wings, tasting the air with a lizard-like tongue and looking around with a face that looked like a cross between an armadillo and a crab. With horns. And scaly armour.

The demon caught sight of the two men in front of it and stamped on the floorboards, buckling at least one of them, before it threw back its head and roared a challenge at them. And then a single taloned hand came around and backhanded a startled DiNozzo into a small mound of packing cases to one side.

Even as DiNozzo hit McGee was concentrating, slowing his friends impact with the Force, but even then he hit pretty hard. As the demon roared with triumph McGee threw himself into the air, tucked himself into a tight roll just as Master Oz had taught him, and headed straight down.

As he hit the floor he heard the crack-crack-crack as Gibbs fired a tight grouping at the demon's chest with his SIG-Sauer. Unfortunately the demon had quite a tough carapace, because it shrugged the hits off, much to Gibbs' utter horror. It brought its arm around again – and then McGee used the Force to throw it about twenty yards back. It hit the floor with a massive thud, thrashed briefly to get its feet back under itself and then came back upright, spitting splinters and with murder in its eye.

A visibly confused Gibbs brought his gun back up again, but then McGee intervened. "Leave it to me Gibbs," he called as he activated his lightsabre and threw himself into the air in a force-leap straight at the creature.

The demon saw him coming, its eyes drawn by the yellow light from the blade, but it couldn't stop him. No matter how sharp its talons or how strong its arms it was no match for the lightsabre and McGee felt a pang of regret as he hacked its nearest arm off – and then whirled quickly around to take off its head in a simple clean strike at its neck.

The bellow that the demon was emitting cut off with a blink and then the head slowly toppled off the body, followed a millisecond later by the rest of the body. It hit the ground with a hell of a thud, stirring up the 'dust' that had not too long ago been the bodies of the vampires who had started this entire mess.

McGee reached out with the Force to make sure that it really was dead and then relaxed slightly, turning off his lightsabre. Then he turned to the pentagram and gestured sharply, using the Force to break the floorboards under it and destroying the damn thing. Only then did he turn to face Gibbs, who was standing there, seemingly in a daze. He suppressed a laugh – he'd never seem Gibbs look so thunderstruck. Then he heard a noise and looked over to see Ziva David staring at the body of the demon, her own weapon in her hand.

"Ok," McGee said, "I guess I have some explaining to do."


	3. Chapter 3

Afterwards McGee could never say with any certainty how long the silence lasted. Maybe thirty seconds, maybe a minute was his guess afterwards, but at the time it seemed like a long, long time. He could see Gibbs' mind reeling as he looked at everything – the dead demon, the lightsabre in McGee's hand and the shattered floorboards with the ruins of the summoning circle. The good thing was that he had his sidearm down and pointing at the floor. The bad thing was the glare. The Gibbs glare could melt lead.

Finally Gibbs opened his mouth. "McGee?"

"Yes boss?"

"What the hell… what is that _thing_?" Gibbs asked, waving his left hand at the demon.

"It's a demon," McGee replied as he calmly hooked his lightsabre to his belt. "When Tony shook his bleeding finger next to that summoning portal he got some blood on it and the damn thing activated."

"Portal?" Gibbs looked as if he was about to explode into a million pieces and his voice sounded as if his brain was busy interrogating his eyes thoroughly due to the insane reports that were coming back from them. The glare intensified still further as he holstered his gun. "McGee, what the _hell_ is going on here?"

McGee pondered for a moment about the best way to answer this and was opening his mouth to respond when he was suddenly interrupted by the sound of packing cases being shoved to one side as Tony DiNozzo stood up hesitantly. He was clutching his head and his eyes were crossed.

"What… the hell… was that?" DiNozzo slurred as he took a step towards them. "Argh, my head… sorry boss. That guy in that fancy dress… costume… caught me… by…." His voice wound down as his eyes uncrossed and he processed the scene in front of him. "Ok, what the hell is that thing and why is it in several pieces?" Then he seemed to notice McGee. "Whoa. When did you get here McTardy?"

"I was here the whole time Tony," McGee replied quietly. "I had to intervene when you summoned that thing by mistake."

DiNozzo blinked. "What? I did what again?"

McGee sighed – and then Gibbs exploded again. "McGee. Explanation. NOW. And you can start with answering my question – what is that… _thing?_"

"A demon, Gibbs." The words were not McGees. Instead they came from a very shaken Ziva David, who had put her own weapon away and who was looking at the corpse with fascinated dread. "I am not that familiar with them, but I have heard tales of things like this from my father. Mossad has a special division devoted to fighting such things. They are rare, but they do exist."

This was a curveball that no-one had seen coming and McGee looked at Ziva with quiet respect.

"A demon." DiZozzo clutched at his head again. "OK, I'm going to fall over now, because I'm concussed and this conversation is getting too freaky even for me. Plus I think that concussion must be infectious or something, because I could have sworn that I heard a lightsabre, just like that witness said. Are those paramedics gone yet?"

McGee sighed. "You did hear a lightsabre Tony. My lightsabre. I had to use it to kill this thing before it disembowelled the boss."

DiNozzo peered at him and then laughed. The laugh had a slight note of hysteria in it. "Oh come on, McSkywalker! A lightsabre? Really? Have you got a blaster too? Is the Death Star parked behind the Moon as well?"

McGee looked at DiNozzo levelly, before reaching to his belt and pulling out his lightsabre. Then he thumbed the activation switch, letting the yellow blade spring into life. He kept it on for about ten seconds, watching with quiet satisfaction as DiNozzo's jaw dropped open, and then he deactivated it and returned it to his belt. And he smiled at the other NCIS agent, before turning back to Gibbs. "Boss, there's a very simple explanation for all this. I'm a Jedi Knight."

Gibbs blinked. Ziva raised her eyebrows. And Tony DiNozzo fainted.

McGee winced as he hit the floor and then rapidly strode over to him and embraced the Force, reaching out with it to probe at his friend's skull. "Damn," he muttered, "He must have hit harder than I thought when that demon smacked him about. He's got concussion." He knelt down next to him, placed his right hand over DiNozzo's forehead and concentrated. "Boss, I'm putting him into a healing trance, but we might want to have him checked out by someone. The paramedics have gone, but Ducky should be able to take a look at him when we get back to the office."

Gibbs tilted his head to one side and then gave him that special look that said that the world had finally and irrevocably gone crazy. "Is he going to be ok?"

"He should be."

There was a pause. "And you're a Jedi."

"Yup."

"Since when?"

"Since I took that holiday in California. Trained with some people there. Good people – you'd like them."

Gibbs looked around the warehouse, at the body of the demon, at the splintered floorboards and then at the rafters. Then he glanced at Ziva, who pursed her lips and shrugged. "Fine," he said eventually. "But when we get back to the office you and me and going to have a little talk about what the hell happened here."


	4. Chapter 4

"Look up. Look down. Look right. Look left. Thank you Anthony. Now, you have a headache?"

DiNozzo winced and then felt at the back of his head. "Feels like someone whacked me with a baseball bat, Ducky."

Dr Donald Mallard tutted and then inspected the area that DiNozzo was so gingerly feeling at with his fingers. "Yes, I can see some bruising… hmmmmm."

"Hmmmm? What hmmmm? I don't like it when you make that noise Ducky. It forebodes. What's wrong with my head? Is it cancer?" A horrible thought struck him. "Oh god, I'm not going bald am I?"

"Calm yourself Tony, you're not going bald. It's just that the bruising is quite advanced for such a recent wound. It's almost as if your body has been working overtime to heal itself. That or you already had a bruise there."

"Nope, I would have known about that." He winced as Ducky's fingers pressed a little too hard.

"And you did this exactly how again?"

DiNozzo frowned. The last few hours had been a bit of a blur if he had to be honest. He'd woken from his enforced nap on the floor of the warehouse feeling a lot better than he had been before said nap. However, McGee and Gibbs had then hauled him to his feet and then looked at him critically, before escorting him back to the van and then driving him back to the NCIS Headquarters. Then he'd been taken straight down to see Ducky, whilst Gibbs had been waylaid by Director Vance and then taken off to MTAC to discuss another case.

"I'm not sure you'd believe me if I told you Ducky. It's… complicated."

"I'm not sure what exactly you mean by that Anthony. Do you mean genuinely complicated, or do you mean that something embarrassing happened to you?"

DiZozzo pulled a slight face. "Combination of the two, Ducky, combination of the two." He eyed the older man doubtfully. "Plus, it sounds so crazy that I don't want you calling for the nice men in white coats to take me away to a padded cell somewhere." He paused, thinking hard. "Have you noticed anything… odd about McGee recently?"

Ducky looked at him with some surprise. "Oddly enough I was talking about this with Mr Palmer just the other day. We agreed that he seems to have lost quite a bit of weight whilst gaining quite a bit of serenity. I think I even saw him meditating the other day."

This was something that should have boggled his mind. He was disturbed to find that it didn't.

The doors to Autopsy opened and – speak of the devil! – McGee walked in. "How is he Ducky?" he asked as he approached.

"He'll live, Timothy, he'll live. Some severe bruising that seems to have healed a bit more than I thought was possible over such a short period of time, but apart from that, Anthony is just fine. Although he still hasn't told me _how_ he came to be injured in the first place."

"Ah." McGee rubbed the tip of his nose thoughtfully. Then he looked at Ducky seriously, before smiling slightly. "I think you can tell him Tony."

"Ok. Well, there were these two CPOs who were kidnapped by this mysterious gang of men who we still haven't found any sign of, and who had some kind of facial deformities and-"

"I beg your pardon Anthony but – facial deformities?" Ducky sounded slightly concerned.

"Ask Ziva about it, she talked to the witnesses. Anyway, this gang took them to this warehouse, where there was this really, really, freaky design on the floor like a pentacle or something and-"

"Excuse me again Tony, but pentacle? I think you mean _pentagram_." And he now looked concerned as well. "And can I ask what _kind_ of pentagram?"

DiNozzo looked blank. "Well it was kind of… pentagrammy. Red paint, blue paint, white paint… all very weird-looking. Are you ok Ducky?"

Ducky had gone a bit pale and was leaning against his desk. "Fine, just fine Anthony. So – a gang with 'facial deformities' and a pentagram. I think I need to have a word with the Director about the need to start briefing selected agents about the occult again. Oh dear me. Please continue Anthony."

The doors opened again and Gibbs stalked into the room, anger written all over his features, followed by Ziva. "Is he ok Ducky?"

"Fine, Jethro, just fine. He was just telling me about how he came to be injured."

DiNozzo nodded. "Well it's all a bit freaky Ducky. By the time we got there the two CPOs had been rescued by a mysterious man who left his phone behind and who turned out to be McGee. No sign at all of the gang – you need to tell us what happened there McGee – and we just had this big dusty warehouse with this freaky pentagram."

"Dusty?" Ducky broke in again, raising his eyebrows.

"Very dusty Ducky. Anyway, we got there, we found McGee's phone, and then I was walking towards that pentagram-"

"With a cut finger from the fence outside," McGee broke in as he stared at the ceiling.

"Oh yeah, you need to take a look at that Ducky, Gibbs said that there wasn't much chance of getting tetanus from it, but I'd like your second opinion. Anyway, I was walking up to it, ok I was worrying about my finger, when something whacky happened. I think I saw the pentagram move out of the corner of my eye, which had to be some kind of optical illusion, and then there was this thing standing in front of me."

Ducky had now taken his glasses off and was pinching the bridge of his nose. "Oh dear lord," he whispered. "What kind of thing?"

"Not sure. It had a lot of teeth, I can tell you that. And very long arms. Knocked me into a load of packing cases. And when I woke up I had this ouchie on the back of my head. And… then things got a bit screwier."

"In what way?"

"Well… McGee?"

"Tony, given the fact that Ducky has a stake strapped to the underside of every one of the autopsy tables here, I think that he deserves to know."

DiNozzo stared at him, baffled. "Stake?"

But it was Ziva who then broke in. "Wait. You mean that Ducky knows about vampires?"

"Vampires?" The word came from both Gibbs and DiNozzo, at almost the same time.

"Yeah," McGee said as he sat on the nearest table. "Ok, time for me to explain a bit. I was patrolling last night when I saw a car drive past me. I sensed that it was full of vampires. I also sensed that there were two humans in it, both unconscious."

"McGee – vampires?" This time Gibbs sounded incredulous.

"Boss, you saw a demon today. Plus you heard what I am. And you have a problem with vampires?"

DiNozzo paused and then reached under the table that he was sitting on. Sure enough, there was something under there and he wrenched it out. Oh. It was a piece of wood that had been whittled to a point at one end.

"Ducky?"

"Ah. It's, um traditional. For all medical examiners. Those who value living that is." Ducky looked around the room. "I sense that we seem to be entering deep waters here. So – Anthony had an encounter with a demon today. And Timothy met some vampires. Yes, I know Jethro, it sounds insane but it's not. Please continue Timothy."

"Well, I followed them back to the warehouse, where the rest of the gang was, along with their leader. Who seemed to be a bit mad." McGee looked at Ducky and raised an eyebrow. "There were 13 of them all told."

"Ah. A significant number for the occult. And when you say leader do you mean-"

"Yes Ducky. A master vampire."

DiNozzo looked around at the others. McGee and Ducky were taking all this very seriously. Ziva was looking intently at them. And the boss… well Gibbs looked as if he'd been whacked around the back of the head by his latest boat.

"A formidable adversary Timothy," said Ducky, looking concerned. "And at the head of a significant group of the undead." He looked back at DiNozzo. "Ah, Anthony said that the warehouse had been very dusty. I take it that that means that…"

"They're all dead Ducky."

"Can I ask how?"

McGee looked at the older man levelly. "Ducky, I'm a Jedi Knight."

A silence fell whilst Ducky polished his glasses. "Ah. Your trip to California this year – I take it that you went to Sunnydale?"

"Yes."

"I was once temporarily based there, working for an organisation that I really can't talk about, and I've kept in touch with a few very reliable people there."

McGee smiled suddenly. "My cousin Graham Miller says hi by the way Ducky."

Ducky grinned fiercely. "Aha! I thought as much – you do resemble him a little. And I've heard about a certain Mr Harris and his friends there."

"Ah," McGee smiled again. "I trained with one of those friends."

"Ducky," Gibbs broke in, "You _know_ some of these people?"

"Oh yes Jethro. If not personally then at least by reputation. Young Timothy has been trained by the very best. And I take it that you have a lightsabre Timothy?"

McGee pulled his out and showed it to Ducky. "I built it myself."

"Then I _envy_ you, although I'd advise against showing that to young Abigail just yet. And it explains so much. So – you were trained there. A very nasty place, Sunnydale. The same thing could be said about any hellmouth, but I particularly disliked that place."

McGee smiled slightly. "The place is getting better Ducky. There's a lot less of the night life around for a start."

"Hold it!" Gibbs stopped leaning against the table and then glared around the room with what looked like rather tired eyes. "Ducky. Hellmouth? Vampires?"

"Yes, Jethro. If you're asking me if I believe in them, well… hang on a second." He rolled up his right sleeve to reveal his forearm. A long unpleasant scar was visible on the underside of his forearm. "A souvenir from a man who was not as dead as I had initially thought when he arrived on the autopsy table that I was using at the time. A vampire, Jethro. They do exist. They are utterly evil. You can't imprison them, you can't reason with them – not if they're hungry – and you can't fight them easily. They're too fast, too strong. But if you know what they're like – or you have a lightsabre like young Timothy here – then you just might have a chance. So. Do I believe in what we've been talking about? Evidently so. And so should you."

Jethro Gibbs closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead tiredly. "Ok. Right. McGee. So our kidnappers are all dead?"

"Yes boss."

"This is going to be tricky to explain away."

"Oh," Ducky broke in, "I'd be amazed if Director Vance doesn't know about vampires. I imagine that it's a key part of the briefing he received about the occult after he was appointed to his position."

Gibbs opened his mouth and then closed it again. "I need a very stiff drink," he muttered under his breath. Then he turned back to McGee. "So there are more like you?"

"Yes boss."

"So how the hell did this happen? How does an NCIS agent become a Jedi Knight?"

"Long story Gibbs."

Gibbs pointed at him. "Start talking then."


	5. Chapter 5

_Six months ago…_

The NCIS office in LA was unnaturally quiet as McGee opened the door and walked in. He hesitantly looked around. None of the desks were occupied and he felt more than a bit lost.

"Ah, there you are Mr McGee," a quavering voice said to one side and he peered around a pillar to see Hetty Lange, the operations manager for the office. She was bundled up in a coat, had a blanket around her shoulders and was wearing a woolly hat that bore some resemblance to a tea cosy. She was visibly shivering. "Welcome to Los Angeles. Please excuse my not shaking hands, but this wretched bug that has struck so many of us down is not something that I want you to catch."

"Hetty, are you ok?" McGee asked.

"No, she's not," a voice grumped to one side and McGee turned to look at Special Agent Callan, who was leaning against a desk and looking annoyed. "She should be at home, in bed, getting better!"

Hetty glared back at Callan over the top of her glasses. "Nonsense! Mr Callan, I refuse to let a handful of RNA strands defeat me! I am just fine." She sniffed disdainfully and then peered into the teapot on the tray next to her.

"Yeah well, that handful of RNA strands, which the rest of us call flu, brought friends and are having a party in your bloodstream right now."

Hetty sniffed again, and then poured herself a cup of tea with an unsteady hand. "Mr Callan you may brief Mr McGee about our current cases. Mr McGee it's very good to see you again and please pass on my thanks to Director Vance for sending you when we are so very short-handed."

"Thanks Hetty," McGee said with a smile and then walked over to Callan. The other agent was a little pale and had black circles under his eyes. "Are you ok?"

"I got this damn virus first. Spent a week in bed shivering like a leaf. Came back to work two days ago, after I heard that Sam and Kensi were both off with it. That was when Hetty sent in her request for help from Vance. Come on, I'll read you in to our current workload whilst we leave Hetty to _go home!_"

Hetty drew herself up. "Mr Callan please go away before I am reduced to childishly sticking my tongue out at you."

Callan shook his head. "C'mon, McGee, I've got a desk set up for you."

As it turned out the current workload wasn't too bad. One case of smuggling on board the frigate USS _Reuben James_, a minor incident involving a sailor from the visiting HMS _Battleaxe_ who had been caught up in a bar fight, that he hadn't started, a BOLO alert for a minor suspect in a fraud case out of San Diego and the usual oversight of any potential terrorist activity.

"It's been quiet on the terrorism front recently," Callan said tiredly. "We did have a tip-off about suspicious activity in a local mosque, but it turned out to be a surprise birthday party for the Iman there. Luckily we found out about that in time. Could been embarrassing otherwise."

"I can imagine," McGee said wryly. "So the smuggling case takes priority at the moment?"

"Yeah, and it's a slightly weird one, as-" He was interrupted by a tinkle of spoon in cup followed by a gentle thud. Peering over they saw that Hetty's head was resting on her desk whilst her overturned cup leaked tea over the edge of the desk and onto the floor. "Damn it. Ok, I'll take her home and call a doctor for her. If need be I'll call Vance and tell him that she needs to be ordered to stay away from work until she's cleared by a doctor." And then he strode off.

By the time he came back, looking tired and exasperated, McGee had read all of the relevant files, rearranged his desk to his liking, wiped down every nearby surface with antiseptic wipes and also found the coffee machine, the canteen and the toilets, in that order.

"I don't envy that doctor at all," Callan grumbled as he sat down again next to McGee. "She is going to drive that poor bastard mad. I finally had to remind her that going to work whilst ill and infectious is incredibly selfish. That shut her up. Right. Where were we?"

"You were about to tell me about the smuggling case – Gunner's Mate Robert Weiss. I think you said that it was a bit weird."

Callan pulled a face. "Yeah, it is. We got a tipoff from the IRS after they did a surprise audit on a bank here in LA. They found out that Weiss had been paid more than three hundred thousand dollars from an offshore account that vanishes somewhere in Switzerland. That set off alarm bells and we looked into it. Turns out that three days after his ship, the USS _Reuben James_, makes port after travelling to Pearl Harbor he gets paid fifty grand, regular as clockwork."

"Sounds like smuggling to me," McGee agreed. "What's weird about it though?"

"I'm not sure," Callan admitted, scratching his chin as he looked at the screen. "Weiss has a spotless record. His file is full of commendations from his CO and he's up for promotion. His family's well off, no money worries – so why the smuggling? Something feels off about it."

McGee thought about it for a long moment. "You're right, it does seem a bit odd. So what's the plan?"

"_Reuben James_ docks this afternoon. The moment that Weiss gets off the ship we trail him. If he drops something off anywhere we come back with a search warrant and check it out."

"Sounds like a plan to me. What's next?"

When Reuben James nosed into her usual berth McGee found himself in the front passengers seat of an extremely average and unremarkable car. Both he and Callan were wearing sunglasses on what was quite a hot and sunny day, as well as totally nondescript clothes.

"There he is," Callan grunted about an hour later as he peered at the ship through a small pair of binoculars. "He's the guy with the black rucksack."

McGee peered through his own binoculars. "I see him. Cheerful-looking guy, isn't he?"

They watched the Gunner's Mate as he walked down the gangway from the ship, chatting cheerfully with a group of friends, before he then walked off towards the gates that led out of the Naval part of the docks. Here he hailed a cab and then was driven off Northwards. Callan let out the parking brake and followed the cab from a distance.

"He's heading towards the bus station," Callan said after ten minutes and sure enough that was the cab's destination. Weiss got out, paid the driver and then walked into the station. "I'll drop you off and park," Callan told McGee. "Just follow and observe from a distance."

"Got it," McGee replied tersely as he slipped out of the car and walked off in the same direction as Weiss. As he followed the Gunner's Mate a worm of puzzlement was making its presence felt. Weiss wasn't acting in a suspicious way at all. He was strolling along, whistling quietly, looking as if he didn't have a care in the world. He certainly wasn't acting as if he was afraid of being followed.

McGee followed from a distance as Weiss walked almost all the way through the building, until he got to the storage lockers, which he seemed to be very familiar with. He walked down a row of them until he reached one, pulled out a key from his pocket and opened it. He then carefully placed the rucksack in the locker, closed and locked it again and then strolled off, still whistling. As he vanished off in the direction of the cabs again McGee pulled out his phone and dialled Callan.

"Callan – go."

"He dropped off the rucksack at locker 239. He had a key for it, so this could be the usual location. He's heading back towards the cabs."

"I've got him. I'll follow him. You keep an eye on that locker. Find somewhere you can watch it from a distance with giving yourself away. I'll put in a few calls for a warrant – I'll let you know where he goes next."

"Got it," McGee said quietly, looking around. "There's a coffee shop with a view of the locker. I'll grab a coffee and a paper and watch it until I hear back from you."

"Good idea McGee."

McGee ended up drinking three coffees and had read the paper from end to end twice by the time that Callan returned. "Sorry about that," the other agent muttered. "Getting a warrant seems much easier when Hetty does it. Has anyone accessed that locker?"

"No," McGee replied. "No-one's gone anywhere near it. Where did Weiss go to after here?"

"That's the odd thing. He went straight back to the ship." Callan pulled out an envelope. "Let's find whoever's in charge of the lockers and show them the search warrant. Something hinky's going on here."

An hour later the locker was open and Callan was peering carefully into it whilst McGee stood next to him and watched for watchers.

"Ok," Callan said, reaching into the locker cautiously, "One rucksack, black, standard manufacture. It's not secured by anything. Opens with a toggle clasp and… contains a silver box inside a ziplock bag. Weird." He reached in and opened first the bag and then the silver box. "It's full of fine brown powder."

"Drugs?"

Callan shook his head in bafflement. "Doesn't look like any kind of drugs I've ever seen. I'll take a small sample. Then let's put everything back the way we found it and stick a surveillance camera overlooking this place, somewhere nice and hidden."

"Good idea," McGee muttered. "We can send the sample to Abby." He paused. "I'm getting a weird vibe off all of this."

"Me too," Callan muttered as he straightened up and closed the locker. "We're getting as bad as Gibbs and his famous gut."

McGee yawned cavernously as he entered the NCIS office the next morning. He was still getting used to the time difference and although he'd gotten in his usual eight hours of sleep he still felt tired and dull-minded.

Callan, however, looked better – the black circles were almost gone and he seemed to have more of a spring in his step, although that might have been the coffee. The moment he saw McGee he smiled. "Your favourite Goth left us about 20 messages this morning, until I think she finally remembered that she's on Eastern and we're on Pacific Time."

"Uh-oh," McGee grumbled as he poured himself some coffee and then inhaled half of it. "I wonder what we did wrong?"

"We'd better call her and find out before she explodes," Callan grinned. "I'll let you place the call."

"Oh thank you so much," McGee muttered as he dialled Abby's lab in Norfolk on the plasma screen.

The screen flashed into life as Abby picked up, displaying the black-haired Goth. She looked bleary-eyed, but the slightly manic gleam to her eyes meant that her bin was probably full of empty caff-pow containers again.

"McGee! At last! Where have you been?" she whined at him and then she started. "Oh yeah, time difference. Bad of me, should have remembered that. Again." She knotted her fingers as she talked and the speed of the latter made McGee suspicious.

"Abby, how much sleep have you had?"

Abby froze in place and then flashed a sheepish glance at the camera. "Um, some?"

"Abby…"

"Ok, ok, none. Hi by the way Callan. Wow, the place looks empty behind you!"

McGee shot her a quelling look. "Gibbs is going to kill you if he finds you asleep on the floor again. Caff-pow will only take you so far."

"Ok, ok, so I'll get some sleep. When I can. Anyway – your dust! It's mega-freaky!"

McGee and Callan both blinked at the screen and then looked at each other. "So what is it then?" the latter asked.

Abby was practically hopping on the spot with glee now. "You're never going to guess! Not in a million years!"

"Abby…"

"I mean you can try, but there's no way that-"

"Abby!"

The Goth came to a halt a blinked. "What?"

"The results please Abby," McGee said gently.

"Oh. Ah. Well, it's not drugs. It's hair."

McGee and Callan looked at each other again. Then they both turned back to the screen and said, simultaneously: "It's _what_?"

"Hair," Abby pronounced with glee at their reaction. "Human hair to be precise. Or to be even more precise _processed_ human hair."

This was… interesting. McGee leant against the nearest desk and frowned. "Processed in what way exactly?"

Abby grinned massively and then threw her hands up in a declamatory gesture. "Ok, here's where it gets mega-freaky. I still don't know whose hair it is – if it's all from one person, or if it's a collection. I suspect that it's from one person, because the colour is more or less uniform. I'm still running the DNA.

"However, I can tell you how it was processed. First, someone chopped it up with a knife. Not just any knife, a _silver_ knife on a _granite_ chopping board, based on the particulate matter left in the dust. Then, it was saturated in water. Not just any water-" Abby twirled her hands palm-upwards. "_Tears_. Human tears. Then it was freeze-dried. And then it was crushed down into powder using a mortar and pestle. Not just any mortar and pestle either – we're talking about a black granite set. Very heavy and very, very expensive."

There was a moment of silence. "Well this is heavily weird," McGee said eventually. "So much for our smuggling case. I don't think that it's exactly illegal to have processed hair in a silver box on your person. It's extremely odd, but it's not illegal."

"Yeah, but why have it in the first place?" Callan mused. "It sounds like something from the occult. All that's missing is some eye of newt."

"Guys," Abby broke in, "there are some magic shops in LA. I don't mean the ones that sell cheap card tricks and wands with fake flowers on the end, I'm talking about the real Wicca stuff. I did some googling this morning and LA has quite a few places like that."

"Yeah but Abby, would people be willing to pay fifty grand for powdered human hair on a regular basis?"

"Ah," Abby said, grudgingly, "Probably not." Then she cheered up again. "I still haven't finished analysing everything though, so there could be some more surprises!"

"How long until you've finished all your tests?" Callan asked.

She pulled a face. "DNA always takes the longest and not even Gibbs can speed that up. At least another 48 hours. Sorry guys but that's the bare minimum amount of time."

"Thanks Abby," McGee smiled. "Keep us posted."

"I always do," she snarked and then she waved and cut the connection.

"Ok, well that was a curveball," Callan muttered as he stared blankly at the screen. "What now?"

"I guess that we keep an eye on the bag and find out who's willing to pay an obscene amount of money for powdered human hair," McGee replied. But his mind was on something else.

By some kind of telepathy Callan could tell this. "What's on your mind?"

"I think we need an expert on hinky stuff like this to talk to. I have a cousin who's stationed not too far away and who deals with the… unusual." Vampires and demons he didn't say out loud, as he didn't want Callan to have him locked away in a padded cell.

The other agent considered this for a moment and then nodded. "Sounds like a good idea. Go ahead."

McGee wandered over to the canteen, which was empty and pulled out his cellphone. He peered at it, navigated the contacts menu and then hit the right button, before lifting it to his ear. It rang three times before someone answered it.

"Hey Tim! How's life?"

"Not bad Graham, not bad. Look, I need a favour."

"Name it."

"I'm in LA, and yes if I can I'll come over to see you. Problem is that the LA office of NCIS has been hit by the flu bug so I'm covering for other agents, so my time isn't exactly my own. Thing is the case I'm working on at the moment has some… odd aspects."

"Odd in what way?" Graham asked, totally serious now.

"We thought it was a simple smuggling case. Now it seems that the suspect isn't dealing with drugs or contraband, he's got a silver box filled with powdered human hair. Apparently the hair's been chopped up with a silver knife on a granite chopping board, soaked with human tears, freeze dried and then ground up with a granite mortar and pestle."

"Shit," Graham said flatly. "Occult. Possibly magic. You need to be careful, man. Real careful."

"I agree and I will be. Question is – do you know anyone in LA I can ask about this? I need an expert."

"Let me think about this." There followed a ten second silence. "I know just the guy. He helped us out in… well, something that I can't really talk about. Wesley Wyndham-Price. He works for a PI these days, called Angel Investigations. And he knows some good people there."

"I'll look them up. Thanks Graham."

"No problem dude, Stay safe."

"You too." McGee disconnected and then pulled up his browser on his phone. Angel Investigations, here he came.


	6. Chapter 6

Angel Investigations turned out to be based in a small office in a building that seemed to have a high turnover of 'finance' companies that were either shells for money laundering operations or run by total cretins. McGee discovered a terrible promotional video on YouTube, involving a piece to camera by an earnest but not terribly articulate Irishman who seemed to like using the word 'brilliant' a lot. The logo stencilled on the window looked a bit odd as well. It looked more like a deformed butterfly than an angel.

That said, the place was highly recommended and wasn't very far from the NCIS office, so he'd decided to visit it during his lunch break. The locker that Weiss had used was still under camera surveillance but no one had so far visited it, and the other cases were all quite dull if he had to be honest.

The first thing that he noticed when he went through the door was the receptionist. She was of the type that he could instantly classify as 'former cheerleader, prom queen, probably queen bee at her high school' and generally the kind of person who would not have given him the time of day back in high school. Then he looked a bit harder and he saw that this one was different. Her eyes told of strain and worry and empathy. Interesting. "Hi," she said with a wary brightness. "Welcome to Angel Investigations. How can we help you?"

"Hi, I'm looking for Wesley Wyndham-Price."

The smile flickered slightly. "Wesley's part of the senior management here and they're in conference at the moment. Can I take your name?"

"Timothy McGee. He doesn't know me, he was recommended by a friend of mine."

The polite wariness was still very strong. "Can I ask who this friend is and what this is all about?"

"Sure – Graham Miller. He's actually my cousin. I'm an agent with NCIS and I need some information about one aspect of a case I'm working on at the moment. Here's my ID." He pulled out his ID and showed her.

The receptionists reaction was not quite what he expected. She stared at the ID very, very carefully and then she looked back up at him. "One moment please – Faith, can you come have a look at this guy's ID please? He claims he's a Fed."

"Sure," said a voice with a Bostonian accent. "Let's see that ID, Navy Cop guy."

McGee blinked. He hadn't been aware that there was someone else in the room and he turned around slightly. A dark-haired girl had appeared almost out of nowhere and was watching him through narrowed eyes. If Tony had been there he would classified her as 'smoking hot' and then would have drooled on the floor, because she had long tousled dark hair, was extremely pretty and was dressed in a sleeveless top and leather pants that clung to her figure in a highly distracting way. She also looked, in some way that McGee couldn't define in so many words, extremely dangerous, like a predator sizing up what it was going to have for lunch.

Moving slowly he handed his ID over to the newcomer, who proceeded to take and then examine it in minute detail – even going so far as to sniff it. She also held his photo right up close to her eyes and stared at it intently. After a moment she smiled slightly and then tossed it back to him. "It's real, Cordy – he's legit."

The receptionist looked at her and then directed a beaming smile at him that seemed to light up the room. "A real Fed! Wow, that's lucky! Wait here a second please, I'll get Wesley."

"I'll watch the Fed," Faith said, crossing her arms and then looking at him. "So," she said as the receptionist hurried through an interior doorway, "Graham Miller huh? I remember him from the 'Dale. Soldier boy. Hung out with other soldier boys. In that base of theirs." She tilted her head to one side and looked at him. "You look a bit like him. You know what he does?"

"He helps capture demons and vampires for study," McGee said quietly. "I know a bit. He helped save my sister and I when some vampires came carolling the Christmas after last."

Faith raised her eyebrows slightly. "Ok," she drawled, "A Fed who knows about fangfaces. Interesting."

Hearing footsteps McGee turned back to the doorway in time to see the receptionist return with a man in his early 30's. He had brown hair, glasses, a slight amount of stubble and had his sleeves rolled up. He also looked tired and more than a little cranky. "Cordelia here says that you need my help and that you're Graham Miller's cousin," he said quietly in an upper-class British accent. "I also understand that Faith has pronounced your ID to be legitimate. Do you mind if I have a look as well?"

"Sure," McGee said, wondering quietly what the hell was going on. "Here."

"Thank you," Wesley replied and then gave the ID very close scrutiny indeed. After a few minutes he looked at Faith and then smiled slightly. "It looks very official and authentic to me. How on earth were you able to spot that the previous one was a fake?"

"Leather was slightly wrong – smelt different. Alloys in the badge weren't the same either. Oh and the photo ID was a dead giveaway – the wrong paper." She blushed slightly. "I can't help it if I notice these things."

"I'm sorry," McGee broke in, "But you had a fake federal agent in here earlier on?"

"A fake US Marshal," Wesley said grimly, handing McGee his ID back. "Thank you. Now – how can I help you?"

McGee repressed the need to be nosy and instead turned back to the reason for his visit. "Um, I'm working on a case that involves possible smuggling. I say 'possible' because the substance being smuggled has possible occult properties which complicates things. I need some information about it before we can decide on what to do about it."

Wesley scratched the side of his neck curiously. "I see. What exactly are we talking about here?"

"Well, we got hold of a small amount of it and had it analysed. Apparently it's human hair that was chopped up finely by a silver knife on a granite chopping board, soaked in human tears, freeze-dried and then crushed to powder with a black granite mortar and pestle."

Wesley stopped scratching at his neck and then squinted at McGee. "Interesting," he said eventually. "I suspect that you're dealing with Virgin's Dust. It's not harmful in any way and it's mostly used by practitioners of white magic for blessings or similar events. How much are we talking about here?"

"A silver box, about six inches tall, four wide and four deep."

Wesley nodded. "That would be enough to supply a magic shop for about a year. It's quite expensive you see, so it's sold in small amounts."

Nodding to himself McGee made a few notes in his notepad. "The suspect is being paid about fifty thousand dollars every time he returns to LA from Hawaii. Is that its street value?"

Wesley's eyebrows twitched. "No, he said levelly, "that amount of Virgin Dust is worth about ten times that sum. It's possible that your suspect is just a courier."

McGee's jaw dropped. "Half a million dollars?"

"Oh yes, at least that. Both the hair and the tears need to be from a virgin between the age of 18 and 25. The tears need to be genuine ones as well. You can't just wave an onion under someone's nose and then collect the tears. And there has to be no element of duress. In many cases you give them the saddest work of fiction you can find and a collecting jar."

"I see," McGee mumbled, making more notes. "I wonder if this is being made in Hawaii?"

"Given that some of the Hawaiian granites are known to make extremely good mortar and pestles, and that they're rumoured to be magic-friendly there, it might make sense."

"Plus good luck findin' virgins in LA," Faith quipped with a smirk.

"Well," McGee sighed, "Now I need to look into the legal question of if this classifies as smuggling at all. Thank you for your help."

"Not at all," Wesley said seriously. "And now it's time for me to ask you for help. Do you know anyone trustworthy in the local US Marshals office?"

McGee pulled a slight face. "I'm on temporary assignment here from the main office in Virginia due to a flu epidemic. But I know someone in the local NCIS office here who might know. I take it that this is linked to the fake agent you mentioned earlier on?"

"I'm afraid so," Wesley sighed. "One of our clients is testifying as a prosecution witness in a major bribery and corruption trial this afternoon. A US Marshal was supposed to pick him up and take him to court and after that into witness protection."

"Why wasn't he in protective custody before?"

"Because he only trusts us and only agreed to go into protective custody after the trial's over and the accused has been sent to prison." There seemed to be some gaping holes in that logic and some of that must have shown in McGee's face, because Wesley pulled a face. "Yes, I know, it makes sense to him but not necessarily to the rest of us. Or at least so we thought until that fake US Marshal turned up and tried to walk out of here with our client."

An unpleasant thought suddenly struck McGee. "Which law firm does the defence counsel represent?"

"Wolfram & Hart." Faith said the words with a flat inflexion that said more than a thousand swear words could.

"Ah," McGee said, as he closed his eyes and rubbed at his forehead. "Oh crap."

"You're familiar with them then?" Wesley asked.

"A JAG friend of my boss once described the firm as being so corrupt that just walking past one of their offices could tarnish anything silver on your clothing."

Wesley nodded. "Picturesque and entirely accurate."

"You can't call the police?"

"According to a friend of ours in the LAPD there seems to be a rash of petty crime in a five-block area around us that's diverting any passing patrols."

"Ok," McGee sighed as he pulled out his cell phone. "Let me ring my colleague back at the office. He knows the area and might know someone absolutely trustworthy at the US Marshals office. Excuse me."

He dialled Callen's number and then walked over to the window as he waited for the other agent to pick up.

"Callen, go."

"Callen it's McGee."

"Hey, McGee, I was about to call you. We have activity back at the locker – a woman opened it with a key and took the rucksack. I've sent the images of her face to Abby, who's running facial recognition now."

"Ah. I've been talking to an expert on the occult that was recommended to me. I'm not entirely sure that we have a smuggling case here. The stuff is used by magic shops as Abby thought, and it seems to be quite high value due to the manufacturing process. If it is going to a magic shop then we need to look at the legal aspects of this.

"Anyway, I have a question. A potential situation as well, if my gut's telling me what I think it is. Do you know anyone reliable in the US Marshal's office?"

There was a surprised pause on the other end of the line. "I think so. Why?"

"Because my occult expert works for a PI firm that's guarding a prosecution witness for a corruption trial. A big corruption trial if I'm not mistaken. Because the defence council works for Wolfram & Hart. Ever heard of them?"

This time the pause on the other end of the line was a grim one. "Yes," Callen said eventually in a voice like iron. "I wish I didn't, but yes."

"Well, a fake US Marshal walked in here this morning and tried to take their witness. Luckily they have someone here who spotted that the ID they used was fake." He paused and then looked at Faith. "What happened to the fake US Marshal?"

"I stripped him down to his undies and left him tied up in the alleyway next to us. He was gone the last time I looked."

"Ah. You hear that Callen?"

"I did. Imaginative. Ok, I'm going to make some calls. Can you stay there?"

"Roger that. I'll stay here until I hear back from you." He disconnected and turned back to the others, a split-second before the window next to him shattered as three hooded figures leapt through it with their swords and other lethal-looking weapons.


	7. Chapter 7

The next few minutes were, to put it mildly, rather busy. As McGee cringed away from the explosion of broken glass he caught sight of Cordelia ducking behind her desk and Faith reaching down to her boot, whilst Wesley flung himself backwards. As he risked a quick glance at the newcomers his breath caught in his throat. The one nearest him had snapped its head around to look at him and he swallowed nervously at the cold dark red eyes that were almost all he could see of its face. The figure blinked once, visibly dismissed him as a threat and then raised its sword as it turned towards Faith – and then it suddenly sprouted a dagger in the middle of its forehead.

As it started to collapse McGee tugged desperately at his sidearm, but he had barely gotten it free of his holster when there was a flash of movement and suddenly Faith was on the attackers. She didn't move really, she flowed, like a predator unleashed. She kicked the middle one in the face, sending it flying backwards, pivoted around off the angular momentum she was carrying and then somehow got inside the next demons guard and punched it on the chest, hard.

The demon made a choking sound and staggered back, dropping one of the swords it was carrying. This turned out to be a fatal mistake, because Faith somehow grabbed it in mid-air with her left hand, transferred it to her right and then hacked the demon's head off its shoulders with one clean swipe.

McGee gaped. He had no idea how she'd been able to achieve any of that and he backpedalled rapidly from the fight to give her more room whilst he also brought his automatic up just in case.

He didn't need it. The remaining demon came at Faith with a battlecry of some sort, whilst twirling its own sword in some kind of complex pattern around its body. Faith came to meet it with no similar twirls, just a grim intensity. The swords clashed once, twice, and then she kicked the creature firmly between the legs and then chopped its sword hand off as it froze in place and shrieked in a shrill falsetto. Its head swiftly followed.

McGee looked around wildly. His heart was pounding fit to burst and his brain was still processing the extraordinary events that his eyeballs had reported. "Ok," he said eventually, "What the hell was that?"

"That," said Wesley grimly as he bent over the first demon and pulled the dagger out of its forehead with a horrible crunching noise, "Was Wolfram & Hart getting impatient. They'll send more when they realise that these idiots failed."

"Ah," said a new voice from the doorway and McGee looked over to see a thin-faced dark-haired man. He looked familiar – he was the man from the promotional video. "I see that we've had some company. Have some new company as well." He sounded wary and very Irish.

"Doyle, this is Special Agent Timothy McGee from NCIS. And yes, his ID is genuine," Wesley said as he wiped the dagger on a handkerchief and then handed it over to Faith, who grinned and stuck it in her boot. "Hopefully someone in his office will be able to recommend a reliable and discreet contact at the US Marshals office here in LA."

"Pleased to meet you," Doyle said and then he squinted at the bodies. "T'Larg?"

"Yes," Wesley replied, which meant that he must have understood the question. "Interesting choice."

"They'll be sending heavier hitters after this lot failed. Angel's downstairs with that whining little bastard, making sure that he doesn't bolt for the nearest exit." Doyle sighed. Then he looked up. "I have some good news. I put in a call to Xander."

Everyone seemed to perk up at this statement. "Is he in LA?" Faith asked.

"He's not but Oz is. Apparently he's picking up some new speakers again. He'll be here as soon as he can."

"Good," muttered Wesley. "The more help the merrier. I shudder to think who's watching the office at the moment and what they're armed with." He looked around at the damage. "Well, there's not much point in locking the front door now, is there?"

McGee shook his head. "Not really." He was about to ask how this Oz guy could help out against possible snipers outside when his phone went off. "McGee."

"McGee, it's Callen. Look, I've just gotten off the phone with the US Marshals office. The most trustworthy person I know there is Rachel Stark. She's a straight shooter – very good indeed. Apparently she was getting alarmed already – LAPD just called to say that they'd found the real US Marshal who was supposed to pick up the witness unconscious in his car a half-block from their offices. Anyway, she's putting in a few calls to find out where the leak is at her end. She's also getting ready to stomp on anyone who tries to stop the witness from getting to court. Sounds like she has access to a tank or something. I'll call once we're close."

"You're coming with her?"

"Like I said, it sounds like she's got access to something heavy. Could be fun. Probable ETA twenty minutes. Hang tight."

McGee stared down at the phone. "I worry about that guy sometimes." Then he looked up. US Marshal Rachel Stark is on the way to pick up the witness in something pretty heavy duty. Special Agent Callen is joining her. He said that is sounds like 'fun'."

"How long before they get here?" Wesley asked as he peered carefully out of the window with a mirror on the end of an extendable stick that he'd pulled out from somewhere.

"Twenty minutes."

"That may not be enough time. I see something going on at the end of the road. There's a truck of some sort. It's backing up a bit… and they're opening the back. Oh. Ah. Does everyone have a weapon on them?"

McGee opened his mouth for a long moment and then closed it again. "Why?"

"Because there's a demon coming down the road towards us," Wesley said in a grim and distant voice as he collapsed his stick and then stepped back rather hurriedly from the doorway.. "Quite a large one. A Korslarg unless I miss my guess."

"Ah crap," Doyle muttered as he vanished into a back room. McGee heard the sound of a door being opened and then metallic scraping noises. When Doyle returned he was holding a battleaxe and two swords. One of the latter he threw to Faith, who wielded it with a slightly worrying manic grin. The other went to Wesley, who took it with a grim intensity that was just as worrying.

"Um," McGee broke in, "What's a Korslag?"

He was answered by a rending noise as something tall and horrible walked through the front door, destroying it in the process. At the time McGee estimated that it was about 15 feet tall and had the same mass as Iowa. Later in the calm light of day he worked out that it was instead 7 feet tall and weighed about 300lbs. However, the armoured carapace, the large pointed teeth and the claws were identical in both cases. And it was looking straight at him. He went for his sidearm at once, cursing the impulse that had made him holster it earlier. Unfortunately the demon was faster. It backhanded him with an almost lazy swipe of one hand.

Later he worked out that he'd been lucky. If it had swiped him with the other hand he would have been gutted like a fish. That said, being knocked into the desk by a giant behemoth hurt. A lot. He was lucky that the desk wasn't very expensive and therefore cushioned his impact slightly, meaning that he didn't break anything, other than his pride that is.

As he lay there in the wreckage of the desk he stared at the ceiling and wondered dazedly what the hell had happened. Then he heard the sound of ringing noises and shouts, which made him snap back into the here and now quite fast.

When he raised his head over the shattered desk he could see that Wesley, Doyle and Faith were all attacking the demon, which was making noises that combined excitement at being in a fight with slight pain when one of tyhem landed a blow. And that was the problem. As McGee watched Faith delivered an overhead blow to the demon's shoulder that should have cleaved it in twain, and McGee paused for a moment to thank his brain for still being able to process words like 'twain'. Unfortunately her sword met an unmovable object in the demon's armour and the blade simply struck sparks off it.

I have to help, McGee thought desperately, I need my gun. But where the hell was it? He looked around frantically. Ah, there it was! Um, next to the demon's right foot. Damn. He looked around. Nope, nothing else anywhere nearby. There was a sword on the floor on the other side of the demon, but it was his gun that he was focussed on. He had to get it, he just had to. Faith had just been backhanded into the nearest wall, but had somehow bounced off it and was back in the fight and both Wesley and Doyle were showing signs of being wounded.

McGee kicked himself free of the wooden fragments of desk and then rolled over. His gun was just three feet away, but it might as well have been three miles. He looked up quickly to make sure that the demon hadn't noticed him and then his arm came out and he stretched out for the gun. A foot away. Damn it, he needed it! He lunged for it again. Eight inches away.

The events of the next few seconds were very crowded ones. Firstly the demon somehow heard the sound of his hand slapping against the linoleum on the floor and turned to look at him, before raising a hand in what McGee knew was going to be an attempt to turn his head into bloodied goo. Secondly McGee felt his hand sting slightly as his gun somehow entered his grip. He desperately tried to thumb the safety and then raise it to bring it to bear on the demon, but he was then interrupted by the third event. There was a peculiarly familiar noise and then a green shard of light, moving at an incredible speed, sliced through the demon's neck.

There was a frozen moment of total silence and then the demon's head toppled off its shoulders, hitting the floor a moment before the rest of it.

"Heh," Faith said, wiping blood off her nose. "Hey Oz. Good timing."

McGee raised his head and stared at the newcomer. He was short, in his very early 20's, with copper coloured hair. Oh and he was holding a green lightsabre. Plus he was looking at McGee with a very odd expression. "Hi."

"Hi," McGee replied, slightly dazedly as he stared at the lightsabre. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end.

The lightsabre snapped off and then Oz leant down and offered his arm to McGee, who used it to pull himself shakily off the ground. "I see that the Force is with you."

McGee gaped at him. "I'm sorry?"

"Oz, this is Special Agent Timothy McGee, from NCIS. He was helping us." Wesley stared at McGee with upraised eyebrows. "Did you say that the Force was with him?"

"Yup," Oz said quietly. "Interesting."

McGee thought everything through and then came to the obvious conclusion: "Am I concussed?"


	8. Chapter 8

The bag of ice felt quite nice as McGee held it against the lump on the side of his head. He had indeed hit his head. But he wasn't concussed. Nor had he been hallucinating at any point. Which was… rather worrying.

He looked around the room carefully. Doyle had swept up all the glass and had also cleaned up the bodies of the three demon ninjas. McGee wasn't sure where he'd put the bodies and he wasn't sure if he wanted to know. That might mean asking questions about how to dispose of the bodies of demons and the federal agent in him was still shying away from that.

In the meantime Cordelia was busy pulling her personal things out of the shattered remains of the desk, all the time muttering about wastage and the need for non-cheapo desks, whilst Faith and Wesley had dragged away the remains of the huge demon.

McGee shuddered. He still didn't like to think about that thing. What had been especially interesting had been Callen's reaction to it. Ten minutes after the thing had been killed by the Jed… by the Jed… by Oz, there had been a growling noise outside that denoted the arrival of Callen and US Marshal Stark in a SUV that was so large and apparently so well armoured that it could have been driven through several walls and emerged unscathed.

Callen had popped out, wearing body armour and armed with a shotgun and had run in – before stopping dead at the sight of the demons and whistling. "Quite a party," he'd muttered, whilst McGee, who had been trying to think of a way of explaining it all that didn't sound completely insane, closed his mouth with a snap. "You all ok?"

"You… know about demons then?" The moment that the words left his mouth McGee knew that this was a redundant question. Especially when Callen gave him a 'duh' look.

"McGee, I've lived in so many places in LA that I have a very good idea about what lives out there. One day I'll take you a place called Caritas." He'd grinned and then looked serious. "Right, where's the witness? There's a bunch of unconscious people at the end of the road who have Wolfram & Hart written all over them, but I have no idea what happened to them or how long they'll stay asleep."

"I happened to them and they'll be out for a while," Oz had said with a smile. The two men had sized each other up and then Oz had nodded and disappeared downstairs. Not long afterwards a pale and visibly nervous man in his mid-20's had been brought up by an even paler man with gelled hair and who set McGee's teeth on edge for no real discernible reason that he could work out. The witness had been handed over to Callen, who had then run out of the office with him into the SUV, which had then taken off for the courthouse with a squeal of tyres.

He was now becalmed in what seemed to be a perfectly ordinary office, albeit a perfectly normal office with off stains on the floor, a shattered doorway and smashed windows.

Hearing footsteps he looked up. Oz was walking across the floor towards him. He looked, well, like a perfectly normal person. Ok, a perfectly normal person with a slightly odd shade of hair. He flickered an eyebrow at McGee. "Hey."

"Hi," McGee replied with a hint of nervousness.

"Head ok?"

"Hurts a bit. Not too bad though."

Oz squinted at him before smiling slightly. "No fracture or bruising on the inside. You'll be fine."

McGee felt his scalp crawl. "How do you know that?"

The other man leant against the wall and smiled again. "Guess."

This took McGee into dangerous waters of speculation and theories. He struggled with the concept for a moment and then conceded defeat. "You're a Jedi?"

"Yes."

"But… that's impossible."

"Some might say that that demon is impossible. Doesn't make it any less true."

This was valid point and McGee nodded slowly. Then he looked up at the man again. "How?"

"Ever heard of Sunnydale?"

McGee grimaced. "Yes. My cousin's stationed there."

Oz blinked in surprise and then leant forwards and frowned. "Stationed there?"

McGee nodded.

"Initiative?"

"Yes," McGee admitted, surprised. "You know about them?"

"Oh yes," Oz muttered. "Ask your cousin about Adam one day. Who is your cousin by the way?"

"Graham Miller."

Oz laughed softly. "Oh. Yes, ask Graham about me."

There was a moment of silence whilst McGee tried to process some of this, before he finally nodded. "I will do just that."

"Anyway," Oz said quietly, "A chaos mage once came to Sunnydale. A particularly sick and twisted one. He opened a costume shop. Just before Halloween. And all the costumes had been enchanted to turn their wearers into the people – or things – they were dressed as."

McGee thought about that for a moment and then he went white, remembering the long-ago Halloween that he'd dressed up as Elric of Melniboné. It hadn't been a success, especially when the rain had started to wash the talcum powder off. "That sounds…. bad."

"Very bad. Luckily a friend of mine dressed up as Obi-Wan Kenobi. And after the spell was broken he remembered a lot. Including how to access the Force. And-" Oz pulled out a silver cylinder from his right hand pocket. "How to build a lightsabre. He trained. Became a Jedi Knight. Found others who could use the Force. Like me. Trained them too. And now – we're spreading our knowledge." The lightsabre went back into the pocket and he leant back against the wall.

McGee nodded. "Ok," he said eventually. "Why are you telling me this?"

Oz tilted his head to one side. "During the fight, just before I arrived, I felt someone use the Force. Someone other than me."

McGee stared back at him. "Who?"

"You."

There was another pause whilst his brain basically rebooted itself. "I'm sorry?"

"You heard."

Another pause whilst he considered the inherent absurdity of the conversation. "Me?"

"You."

"I can use the Force?"

"Yes."

His next thought wasn't, oddly enough, that Gibbs was going to kill him. It was even worse than that. _Abby_ was going to kill him.


	9. Chapter 9

When McGee returned to the NCIS office the next day he felt as if he'd been stepped on repeatedly by a Legion of Stormtroopers. Bits of him ached that he hadn't known even existed. Especially his brain. The bump on his head had gone down – in fact gone down remarkably quickly – but his brain felt as if it was overloaded with too much information.

His dreams had been very strange as well.

When he arrived he wasn't at all surprised to see that it was still very much just himself and Callen. Even the mysterious technical flunkey who used to wander in and out holding bits of paper had fallen ill and McGee wondered if this was what the Mary Celeste had felt like.

As he sat down at his desk he groaned slightly and Callen looked over at him and grinned. "How're you this morning?"

"In pain," McGee replied. Then he looked over his desk. "Ok, where are we at with this smuggling case? If it is smuggling that is."

"It's not," Callen sighed as he clicked on the remote and brought up a series of images of a rather cute blonde girl in denims and a 'Wiccans do it together' T-shirt picking up the bag from the locker. "Facial analysis identified the girl who picked up the bag as one Jennifer Ramage, who owns a magic shop called Wiccafriends, and no I'm not joking. She was arrested briefly on a public nudity charge about six months ago when a group of wiccans tried to do a blessing ceremony in a park not too far away from here. Claimed that they were trying to save some endangered pixies or something."

McGee just looked at him. "Pixies?"

"That's what they told the LAPD." Callen shrugged. "Anyway, the problem is that this stuff they're bringing in from Hawaii isn't drugs, it isn't contraband, it isn't anything that can really be described as illegal. I've asked the NCIS office at Pearl to look into it. We'll put it on the backburner until then."

"Fine with me," McGee sighed. "Any words from the ranks of the sick?"

"Talked to Sam last night. He might be in tomorrow. From the way he sounded I doubt it, but that's what he said. Kensi just groaned down the phone at me and asked me to make arrangements for her funeral, so she's improving a bit. Marty might be in the day after and I've got the doctor making regular checks on Hetty to make sure that she stays in bed. Luckily our case load is still light."

"Great," McGee sighed.

Callen looked over at him again. "Something wrong?"

This was a good question, but one that could only be answered with either a rant or a lie down on the floor until the universe returned to a more even keel. "Long story," he said wryly. Then: "Are you familiar with a place called Sunnydale?"

"Sunnydale," Callen said with a sigh of his own. "Jesus, I don't know where to start with that place. It's gotten a lot better, but it's still a place to be avoided. Why do you ask?"

"That's where my cousin's based. And… some other people. People that I don't think you'd believe me if I told you about them. Only met one so far. There are more. But what they can do…"

Callen furrowed his brow. "McGee, you're not making any sense."

This was a good point and he reined his thoughts in and tried to make them point roughly the same way. "Ok. You said that Sunnydale has improved. Why is it so bad and what changed it?"

Callen looked around and then visibly remembered that they were in a deserted office. But he still moved closer and lowered his voice. "Place is on a Hellmouth McGee. Bad things happen on those places. As for the improvement, well…. You ever heard of the Vampire Slayer?"

"Um… no."

"Girls with power. Girls with abilities to kill vampires. Rumour has it that the latest one's in Sunnydale." He scratched the back of his head. "Of course rumour also has it that there's a Vampire Slayer here in LA, so that's a bit confusing. And there are the really nutty rumours about Sunnydale."

McGee waited, but Callen appeared reluctant to talk. "Such as?" he urged eventually.

Callen looked embarrassed. "Met a contact from Sunnydale a month or two ago who talked about, um, Jedi. Which is nuts."

There was a long moment of silence whilst McGee thought very hard with a furrowed brow. "What if," he said quietly, "It wasn't nuts. What if… there were Jedi out there?"

Callen stared at him. Then he frowned at McGee, but his eyes were focussed on something else. "That's insane… except the wounds to that demon were. unusual." He refocused on McGee. "What did you see?"

There was a long and singing moment of silence and then McGee tilted his head. "I saw a man with a lightsabre," he said simply. "That guy Oz."

"Ah," said Callen eventually. "Interesting." He pondered some more. "I think you should call your cousin. Ask some questions."

McGee nodded slowly. "Yes. I think I will." He tapped his finger on his desk a few times and then he stood up and pulled out his cell phone. "I'll keep you posted."

It was midday by the time that he could get through to Graham. The first time he rang his cousin it went straight to voicemail, but he hadn't left a message as he didn't really know what to say. The second time, an hour later, he simply said: "Graham, it's Tim, can you call me on my cellphone please?"

And then finally, at 12.14, Graham rang back. "Hey Tim," he yawned audibly, what's up? How did it go?"

"Yesterday was… interesting," McGee replied wryly. "Arrived at Angel investigations just time to discover them protecting a witness for a federal court case from the tender ministrations of a company called Wolfram & Hart."

"Oh shit," Graham said, suddenly sounding very much awake. "What happened?"

"Well, thanks to someone called Faith, who seems to know you we fought the first wave off. Then the second wave arrived and it was a lot nastier. Luckily we had some help from someone I believe that you know. Called Oz. And his… interesting sword."

Silence fell for a long moment. Then Graham laughed softly. "Oh crap. You know what Oz is then?"

"Oh yes. Vivid demonstration."

"Tim, I couldn't tell you about Oz and the people around him. Firstly because it wasn't my secret to tell and secondly because I didn't think that you'd believe me."

"I know – on both counts. Still having a bit of trouble processing it though."

"Yeah, been there and done that. I thought I was going mad the first time I saw evidence about them. I notice that we're being cautious in our conversation?"

"That's because I'm having trouble processing everything, but I'll get better eventually. Besides, there's a… complication."

"What kind of complication?"

"Oz says that the Force is with me."

A much longer silence fell, a rather stunned one. "Ah," Graham said eventually. "Interesting. Are you… considering it?"

McGee took a deep gulp of air into his lungs. "Yes," he said firmly. "Yes I am."

"Tim," his cousin told him in a firm voice, "This is a no-brainer. Do it."

Various things clicked into place in his brain. "I will."


	10. Chapter 10

"-and he'll be on the 12.39 flight out from LAX," McGee said tiredly as he looked up at the screen. Then he smiled. "He probably thinks that he's gotten away with it."

"Yeah well, he'll have a greeting party in the form of Tony and Ziva," Gibbs growled from the screen. "Good job McGee."

"Thanks Boss," McGee replied. It had been a hell of a past three days. They'd had a kidnapping case fall onto their laps from absolutely nowhere. Lieutenant Commander Robert Crossman had returned home from deployment to discover that his pregnant wife and five-year old daughter had been kidnapped by a not particularly intelligently led street gang who seemed to think that naval officers has access to large numbers of automatic weapons and ammunition.

Why they hadn't kidnapped someone from the Army or the Marines was a mystery. Crossman was an officer on a frigate. Go figure.

McGee and Callen had been in on this case from the start and it had been a total bastard. They'd been running surveillance, trying to identify the main suspects, trying to track the main suspects, working out where the hostages were… it had been a long list of things to do.

Luckily on the second day they'd been joined by Sam Hanna, who'd risen from his sickbed the moment that he'd heard about the case. And on the third day Kensi had joined them. A pale, slightly shaky, Kensi, but that wasn't a problem.

And they'd done it. Linda and Ellie Crossman had been saved, the vast majority of the gang were now in custody (although three of the stupidest were dead) and only their leader was still free. Well, sort of. He'd had the bright idea of fleeing to the other end of the country. Unfortunately he'd used his real name to book the flight. And now Tony and Ziva were going to pick him up at Dulles.

"You ok McGee?"

He started and then looked at the screen. "Sorry boss. It's been a long week."

Gibbs stared at him shrewdly from the other end of the country. "Are they ok in the LA office now?"

"Well, Hetty's still off and I think that Kensi's going to fall over if someone breathes too hard on her, but apart from that I think that they're getting back to normal here."

Gibbs nodded. "You need any time off, just let me know. I'll clear it with the Director. We owe you for stepping up to the plate on this one."

Slightly taken aback McGee paused for a moment as he thought about it. "Thanks Boss. I have got some time off coming that HR's been pressing me to take. Let me talk to a few people and then I'll put in for that time off."

This bought him a nod from Gibbs. "You get any problems let me know. Good job on this case Tim. Book that time off. Gibbs, clear." He turned to someone offscreen and made a slashing gesture across his throat, just before the screen went dark.

Well. He needed to take a look at how long he could take off. How long could it take to become a Jedi? Weeks? Months? If he recalled correctly Luke Skywalker learnt a great deal between the evacuation of Hoth and the arrival of the Millennium Falcon on Bespin. How much could he cram in during the time he could take? Could he even do this thing at all?

He was overthinking this thing again. That was a bad sign. Then he frowned. He knew what he needed to do.

And then he'd need to hire a car.


	11. Chapter 11

Still enjoying this and damn, I still don't own these characters...

* * *

Two things struck McGee when he entered Sunnydale for the first time. The first was the extraordinary number of cemeteries around – far more than should be usual for a place this size. The second thing was the faint chill that came over him, like someone walking over his grave. He wasn't sure what it was or why he felt it, but it was there and he didn't like it very much.

According to the information he'd gotten off Graham the best place to go was the library on campus. And the campus itself set off a number of faint, indefinable, alarm bells. For one thing a number of the male students looked awfully like they belonged to Fort Bragg. And then there was the blonde girl who moved in a very similar way to Faith. He caught sight of her from a distance and damn she was good looking. And menacing in a way that he couldn't put his finger on.

Once he got to the library he had to admit that he was impressed – it was a great one. A lot of books, a well-labeled floor guide, good computer facilities… his sister Sarah would have been impressed. Ok, well, actually she would have looked around with a dreamy smile and then disappeared inside it for a week, but you got the picture.

"I'm looking for Xander Harris," he said when one of the security guards asked to see his student pass. The guard gave him directions to an office deeper inside the building and then turned his attention back to the students, whom he seemed to suspect of book smuggling, or something equally heinous.

When he reached the office he found a tall man whose brown hairs was starting to go a little grey at the temples and who seemed to be extremely English. At least that's what it said on his coffee mug. He was reading a large book of Mayan script and judging by the muttering he was not enjoying himself. "Bloody Mayans and their bloody archaic rituals… I could have condensed this into a quarter of the time and we'd at least have a salad at the end of it…" Sensing McGee he looked up. "Oh. Excuse me. Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Xander Harris. My Name's Timothy McGee."

The Englishman stared at him for a moment and then smiled. "Ah. Yes, I did hear about the help that you rendered to Faith and Wesley. Just before the arrival of Oz. Well, Xander's sadly not here just at this moment, but I don't think that he'll be too long. He had to make a phone call to a friend of his in the US Air Force. Something about a repulsorlift problem or something."

Big flashing lights lit off in part of McGee's head, but he repressed a comment other than: "Ah. I see."

Another stare, followed by a slow smile as he stood up. "Let me introduce myself; I'm Rupert Giles, the head librarian here. Amongst other things."

Tempted as he was to ask what kind of other things McGee repressed it and simply shook hands with Giles. "Pleased to meet you Mr Giles."

"Likewise Mr McGee. Now, as to where Xander is, I think that-"

"Good morning," said a new voice and they both jumped slightly at the sudden appearance of someone new. And he had almost literally appeared out of nowhere.

"Damn it Xander, please stop doing that," Giles grumbled. "Knocks years off my life every time you do it."

"Constant vigilance, Giles, constant vigilance." The newcomer was a tallish young man – hell he was younger than McGee! – with dark brown hair and brown eyes. He was dressed in light brown clothes, with black boots, but it was his eyes that intrigued McGee. They were almost far too old to belong to a man his age. Gibbs had eyes very like his. They were the eyes of someone who had both been there and seen it. Repeatedly. "You must be Tim McGee."

"I am," McGee replied quietly, shaking hands with Harris quickly. "Um… Can we talk someplace private?"

"You can talk in front of Giles." Harris shot the older man an affectionate look. "He's suffered greatly in the defence of us all, including lots of my bad puns." His expression sobered. "And he knows what goes bump in the night on the Hellmouth. And all about who fights the darkness here."

"Then he knows that you're…" McGee found himself suddenly unwilling to say the word 'Jedi'.

"A Jedi, yes." Giles smiled and then took off his glasses in order to polish them. "Mr McGee, I was the first person that Xander came to when he first realised that he could access the Force."

Harris turned, looked out of the office windows and then, as the hairs on the back of McGee's neck tried to rip themselves off, he waved a hand at the door – which closed smoothly and without any assistance from any external stimulus.

"You wanted to talk to me," Harris stated. "I think I know why. The Force is strong in you. I can feel it."

McGee opened his mouth, closed it again and then sighed. "Your friend Oz said that I can be a Jedi. The thought of it... both scares and intrigues me. And I want to do what's right."

Harris exchanged glances with Giles, as they seemed to have some kind of eyebrow shorthand going. "You want to do what's right," Harris said eventually. "Which is a good sign. We've trained other Jedi before, from worse starts. But – they were aware of how hard it would be. Are you?"

A thousand thoughts flashed through McGee's head as he tried to image what it would be like. Finally he settled on total honesty. "I think it'll be harder than anything I can imagine."

Harris grinned cheerfully at him. "Got it in one. Right then. Let's see when you can start. And then we'll get Oz in."

* * *

Graham looked up when he heard the doorbell and then looked at his watch and frowned. A bit early for the pizza? He walked over to the door and carefully peeked through the peephole. Then he grinned and opened the door. "You're uglier than the pizza girl who delivers to this area!"

"H ha," his cousin replied and then walked in holding a pizza and a six pack of beer. "Although your right – I met her on the stairs and she's very cute indeed. I saw your name, exercised my frightening detective skills and then paid her for the pizza. I hope it's your usual?"

"It is indeed, and thanks for the beer too!" Graham grinned and then glanced at Tim. He looked… different. Pleased. A bit stunned. Definitely tired. Oh and visibly hungry. "How did it go?"

Tim put the pizza down on the table, pulled out a beer, twisted the cap off and then chugged quite a lot of it. "I'm going to be a Jedi," he said in a hoarse and disbelieving tone of voice. "So I'm a bit freaked out."

"Hey!" Graham grinned, getting out a beer himself. "Congratulations!"

"Thanks. I think. I've got a lot of work to do."

"Starting when?"

"Tomorrow morning. I was hoping to crash on your couch."

"Take the spare room. Now sit. Eat pizza. Drink beer. And tell me what happened!"


	12. Chapter 12

McGee's parents had both been into books. His father tended to read military history, naturally enough given his position in the Navy, whilst his mother tended to read absolutely anything. Nevertheless when McGee later looked back at his Jedi training he found himself remembering something that a British author called George McDonald Fraser wrote about his memories of fighting in Burma in 1944-45. He'd written that many of his memories consisted of the odd black and white images, so to speak, punctuated by the occasional strip of colour film. Well, that was exactly what he seemed to think about when he looked back at his training later.

The main memory of the first three days was pain. There had been a lot of running involved as he needed to get fit again in a hurry. It hadn't been fun. At all.

One of the earliest memories was his first real talk with Oz and Xander. Ok, the first real talk that he's been able to participate in after a two-mile run that left him panting so hard that he'd almost thrown up. The talk had, of course, been about the Force. The nature of it. How it could be used. He'd wanted to ask about how a concept from a series of science fiction films could be real, but he had the feeling that neither of the other two Jedi knew.

But what he had asked was how you could tell how someone else could use the Force – in any way. "Is… there any kind of a tell-tale sign? Sixth sense? Gut instinct?"

There was a brief but thoughtful silence from Xander. "That's remarkably specific. Do you have anyone in mind?"

"My boss. He has these… hunches. In his gut. More often than not he tends to be right about them."

"Ah," the Jedi Master replied as he leant back and then stared at the ceiling. "Well," he added after some thought, "It could be a sign of a Jedi. Then again it could be a sign of someone with The Sight, or magic as the case may be. The problem with this world is that there are so many forces, pardon the pun, at work that it might be anything. I'd have to meet the man to be more certain. Hopefully, after your training, you'll be able to tell."

"What's he like?" Oz broke in.

"Gibbs?" Now it was McGee's turn to think. "Very intense, especially on a case. Focussed is the word I think. He'll always do what's right. Especially when someone's in danger. Double that if there's a child involved."

Xander and Oz exchanged a long glance. "Interesting," the former said eventually. "Could be worth meeting with him. At the very least so that he knows what's out there in the way of help and other options."

The next clear strip of memory that he had was that of his first successful bout of Force meditation. He'd tried meditation before, back home, but it hadn't been a success. He'd fallen asleep and then woken up with a terrible crick in his neck. This time it was different. The first few times it was just to get him used to the concept – breathing out and breathing in, stilling his thoughts, concentrating on nothing but himself.

The third time he'd felt as if he had been standing on the edge of an ocean, a feeling that seemed to delight Oz when he told him afterwards. Oz was an interesting guy. He was shortish, a bit older than Xander and a man of very few words. Tony would probably hate him and feel the need to fill the air with noise to make up for Oz's comfortable silences and short but to the point conversations.

The fourth time had been… weird. He'd been meditating, he'd had the same feeling of being next to a very wide and very still ocean – and then suddenly his hand had snapped up, almost of its own volition, and caught a ball that Oz had lobbed over his head. He'd then come fully awake and stared at his hand as if it was some new and very strange creature.

Oz of course had simply smiled and nodded. "Cool," had been his one observation.

Other images followed. More pain from running. Oh and press-ups. And sit ups. And even some pull ups. He was getting fit fast, but oh the pain.

The next strip of memory was when he met the latest pair of Jedi. Daniel Jackson had boggled his mind. He'd heard about the guy from his studies. He was the man who had come up with some very sell-argued but at the same time rather outlandish theories about who had built the Pyramids. He'd then vanished off the face of the Earth, but his presence in Sunnydale had been extremely interesting – especially when he'd pulled out his green lightsabre and then had an astonishing bout of swordplay with Xander that at one point had the two literally running up walls and doing backflips.

But that had been almost nothing compared to the second Jedi. She was a dark-haired girl called Rebecca who seemed to be atoning for something, or so McGee could sense. Xander and Rebecca had… a thing. McGee wasn't sure how to define it. The two seemed to be _complete_ in each other's presence, which was odd because it wasn't as if they were lacking in anything when they were apart. And then they had a lightsabre bout, both with blue blades, well that was a sight to see. Astonishing wasn't the word for it. They flowed, exchanging blows, parrying, moving from position to position almost too fast for him to see. Ziva would have been deeply jealous.

Oh and swordplay. That one was a pain as well. They'd started him off with a wooden practice sword, like out of Spartacus. Well, in the first few days he'd 'died' a number of times, picking up some welts that would last him a little while.

But then by the end of the first week he'd found himself starting to pick up the basics and by the start of the second week he'd been able to progress to a sword made of steel. Which had been heavier but which made him feel as if he was making progress. Right up until the moment that he'd sparred with the other Slayer, one Buffy Summers, the small blonde girl who had given him what the locals so picturesquely called 'the wiggins' on the grounds of the college during his first day in Sunnydale. Buffy had shown him that he had a very, _very_, long way to go.

Which was a good thing, because a day later he'd faced his first apocalypse.


	13. Chapter 13

The apocalypse in question came in the form of a seven foot tall demon with bright red skin, a lot of very sharp pointed teeth and terrible halitosis, who had also been at the end of the line when it came to handing out names with vowels in them. The only person who could pronounce it correctly was Giles and even then he almost sprained his tongue saying it. Myrgggjkxrl. Possibly with a silent 'z' somewhere in there.

Anyway, the Big Bad Red (in the words of Buffy) came to Sunnydale with a host of minions (a mixture of vampires and bespelled humans) and had then settled himself in the ruins of the High School with a plan to open the Hellmouth beneath it.

When McGee had asked why the school had been built on that exact spot he was told the unpleasant story of the former Mayor of Sunnydale, one Richard Wilkins, which deepened his distrust of all politicians and left him making a mental note to check on Sarah's University, just in case the twit in charge was a delusional wanna-be demon.

Luckily Myrgg- Merg- oh hell, the big red demon did not have a reputation for being particularly clever. "Vicious," Giles had commented, "Homicidal even, not one of life's great thinkers."

"Great, I hate it when they get smart," a Texan voice had drawled from the doorway and McGee had then met the one Jedi he hadn't encountered so far. Lindsey McDonald was indeed Texan, with longish hair and a look in his eyes that spoke of humour and wisdom. "Sorry I'm late," he said, eyeing McGee inquisitively, "I need to have a word with a cousin of mine about the need to not piss off people in Interpol. Luckily I was able to prove that I was who I said I was at the airport."

"Lindsey, this is Tim McGee. Oz's new padawan," Xander said with a small smile.

"Good to meet you," Lindsey drawled as he shook hands with McGee.

"We don't have much training time, so he's doing it the hard way."

Lindsey looked at McGee again. "Whoa," he said. "Dagobah? That fast?"

"Yup," said Oz with a smile.

And then Giles broke in with the news that judging by the supplies that whatisname was bringing in, he obviously intended to open the Hellmouth with some kind of ceremony, so they needed to find out a lot more about it as quickly as possible. Various people had grinned at this and then vanished when McGee wasn't paying attention, like a group of anti-Gibbses. It was uncanny.

The news, when the next meeting was convened a few hours later, (McGee spent the time meditating and wondering how they were going to beat this demon) amused Giles massively, judging by the chuckling and the rolling of his eyes.

"Oh dear me. He's going to call upon Bast to open the Hellmouth? What a deluded little tit. Oh dear oh dearie me. Pillock." He looked up at the upraised eyebrows that ringed him and then he smiled and pulled himself together. "Best, or Bastet as she was known later, was a major Egyptian goddess, with the head of a cat. Originally she had the head of a lion and then later a lioness, but she's best known as the cat-headed goddess. Daniel can tell you more about the legends that surround her.

"I however, can tell you that if this is the goddess that Myrgggjkxrl is hoping will assist him in opening the Hellmouth, he's going to have a nasty shock."

"Why?" asked an intrigued McGee.

"Have you ever owned a cat Timothy?"

"Erm, no. I'm allergic to them. My family prefers dogs."

"Well, from my experience cat goddesses tend not to be very cooperative. Not unless they want something from you. And I'm guessing that Myrgggjkxrl doesn't know that and also lacks anything that Bast wants."

And so it had proved. The Scoobies (and wasn't that a weird name that he had to get to the bottom of) had put in a textbook assault on the High School, coming in on two axes of attack and taking out the demon's minions as they went in no time flat. The vampires were dusted, which one falling to McGee with his first real sword. It had had its game face on and seemed to think that he'd be a pushover. It had thought wrongly. His palm had stung quite a bit afterwards from the impact the blade of shearing through its neck. As for the humans they'd all been knocked unconscious.

By the time that they got to the shattered remains of the Library they'd discovered that Myrgggjkxrl was very close to completing the ritual and in fact as the last vampire shattered into motes of dust from a lightsabre to the neck he clapped his hands and shouted the name of the cat goddess at an old-looking idol of Bast in front of him.

There had been an odd shudder in the Force, the hairs on the back of McGee's neck had shot up and then he'd watched in horror as the idol opened stone eyes and then looked around the room. Then it focussed on Myrgggjkxrl, who looked very pleased with himself, before hissing something in Egyptian and then closing its eyes and going back to sleep.

Myrgggjkxrl had sat and stared in disbelief before staring back down at the book in front of him and then flipping back a few pages. Hearing a meaningful cough from one side the demon looked over to see Buffy standing next to him and then made an 'oh shit' noise. A millisecond later her sword removed his head.

"Giles," she asked as they all trooped out of the school, "What did stone kitty woman say to whatisface back there?"

Daniel laughed and then when Giles made a courtly gesture of encouragement he cleared his throat. "Buffy, Bast told him to get lost, as she was lying on her back with the sun on her stomach, having a nap, and didn't want to get involved in any nasty Hellmouth stuff that might get gunk on her paws."

"Ah, kitties," Buffy grinned. "Always up for a belly rub."

McGee smiled and then looked over at Oz, who had approached him. "Time to restart your training."


	14. Chapter 14

Oddly enough week two did not consist of the same amount of pain as week one. Possibly because he'd gone through the pain barrier before and left some body weight with it in the process. Once again some things stood out more than others.

One of the first things that really stood out was the first time that he used the Force without being in a trance first. According to Oz he'd been quite close a few times towards the end of the previous week, but hadn't quite been able to push through. Possibly because he still had a tendency to wonder about just how many of the laws of physics the Force broke and therefore how impossible the whole thing was.

The would-be apocalypse, plus the fact that his brain was finally starting to process all the events that he would previously have described as being utterly impossible, meant that he was able to push past that 'this is impossible' thought. He'd been staring at a pebble on the floor, listening to Oz's voice as he told him to visualise its shape and how it related to the floor… and then suddenly it had been soaring through the air, up into his outstretched hand. The only reason why he hadn't sworn in astonishment was that he'd been too astonished to get a word out.

He'd gone on from there. Pebbles led to stones, with led to bricks and then two by fours and then by the end of the week he'd been lifting logs. He'd also lifted his rental. Which had been a challenge.

Oh, and there had also been the phone call from Abby. Which had been… extremely interesting. And had also been a challenge.

"McGee! You're still in California! What are you doing there?"

"Vacation, Abs, I'm on vacation."

"Yes, but you're on vacation in California. You hate California! It reminds you too much of your father! So what's with the holiday there?"

He couldn't lie about it, so he merely obfuscated. "Well, I found something… interesting to look into. I'll tell you about it when I get back."

"You'd better buster. Anyway, I've got this… tiny thing that I need help with."

An alarm bell went off in the back of his head. "What kind of thing?"

"Well, technically, according to some boring stuffy tight asses, it might be classified as hacking. But I've got the go-ahead from Gibbs and also Vance for it, so it's all legal. Sort of. Kinda."

McGee closed his eyes for a long moment, sighed deeply and then opened them again. "Abby. What do you need?"

"Oh. Right. Ok, well we're tracking this kidnapper creep who's abducted the wife of a Navy SEAL. And it's not looking great so far, because they're using some super-encrypted software that's really gnarly and challenging to crack, but I'll do it anyway. However… I keep losing them in Turkmenistan. Which is a bit weird because of various technical reasons that you know better than I do, but it's still happening. So – I need some ideas from you. And perhaps me borrowing your super-great but also super-perhaps-illegal tracking software? Please? Pretty please? Pretty please with sugar on top?"

McGee sighed, gave her a few ideas and then told her how to access the software. Abby's final words to him that day had filled him with a slight amount of foreboding; "And you'd better tell me all about your vacation!"

Force leaps were his next major memory of training. His first time had been something of a shock because he hadn't meant to do anything like that. He'd been sparring with Oz again, when all of a sudden the Jedi Knight had altered his grip and aimed a blow at his face. Later he'd realised that Oz had been trying to provoke a reaction out of him, but at the time he'd simply reacted. With a force leap. Fifteen feet straight backwards. Luckily they'd been practicing in the practice hall that Buffy frequently used, so that there was plenty of space involved, as otherwise he might have flattened himself against one of the walls, but it had still been a bit of a shock at the time.

Oz had simply nodded in a highly satisfied way and said, simply, "Cool." And after that their training had gone up a level. Actually, a level or three.

More snapshots: more sword training, until his arms felt like stringy noodles. His first demon kill (it had almost literally run into him after it mistook him for an easy meal, a mistake that proved to be the last one it ever made). Going into his first Jedi healing trance, so that he could make up for a night of no sleep. Oh and healing something for the first time – he'd found a stunned chipmunk that had jumped into a wall to avoid a cat. He'd chased the cat away, placed the chipmunk on the palm of his hand and then embraced the Force. Five minutes later the chipmunk had been awake and chittering angrily at him as if its injury had been his fault. He'd lowered it carefully to the ground before it could bite him, listened as it harangued him once again and then watched it scamper off.

Tony would have laughed himself sick. But he didn't care.

And then the time came to Face the Mirror. Facing the Mirror was a Jedi test and it was not an easy one. His previous training had been to train and test his body and his spirit. Facing the Mirror was different. It addressed the mind and the intent.

Oz hadn't warned him about it, but he'd been expecting it. Luke Skywalker had had that cave in Dagobah, where admittedly he hadn't done too well. He'd heard that both Xander and Oz had confronted ghosts of some sort – shapeshifting ghosts. Oh and Lindsey had faced down the evil son of a bitch who was in charge of the LA branch of Wolfram & Hart. As for Rebecca and Daniel, well they were still being tight-lipped about their experiences.

So it hadn't come as a huge surprise when Xander and Oz had led him to a cave up near and hill and had then told him, quietly and without fanfare, that there was a telepathic ghost inside it that he had to confront, adding that he didn't need the sword that he'd been carrying that night.

He'd handed the sword over to Oz, bowed to the two other Jedi and then walked into the cave. It was cool and dank. And dark. With a distinct smell of… mustiness. Something had died in that cave. He'd looked around carefully and then stopped when he heard a snatch of what sounded like someone crying.

A careful step forward. And then another. The sound of crying had returned, quietly at first and then growing in strength. It was coming from just ahead of him, around that bend. He closed his eyes for a moment, stretching out with the Force, before walking around the corner. And then he blinked. There was a flash of light and he was in Autopsy in NCIS HQ.

There was a covered body on a gurney in front of him. He walked up to it. The crying was very loud now but he couldn't see who it was coming from. Reaching out he pulled the cover slowly off the body and then stopped when he saw the face. Abby. It was Abby.

The sobbing was next to him now and he turned to see Ziva next to him. She looked up with a tear-stricken face and then snarled at him. "It's your fault that she's dead," she said in a flat voice. "You were off playing at being a Jedi. She was here doing something meaningful."

"I'm sorry," McGee said quietly. "But I was doing something meaningful too."

"Are you sure, Probie?" This time it was Tony on the other side of him. "Are you really sure? Because as far as I know Jedi belong in films. And Abby's still dead."

McGee looked down at Abby. "Yes. I'm sure."

"Was it worth it?" Gibbs was in front of him now, glaring at him, his face twisted in hatred. "She died when you were elsewhere. She died when you were wasting time pretending to be something that you can never be. A Jedi? You? Give me a break!"

A million thoughts and emotions clicked into place inside his head. "I am a Jedi. And none of this is real."

The thing that was Gibbs grinned suddenly and then brought out a silver cylinder. "Are you sure about that?" And then it thumbed a switch so that a red blade hummed into existence – which it then slashed at McGee's neck.

It didn't get there. Instead it impacted again his hand, which he had brought up with Force speed. "Yes," he said quietly as the image of Gibbs glared at him and the blade hummed against the palm of his hand, "I'm sure. And I am a Jedi."

The thing that wore Gibbs' face snarled him and then tried to rip the red blade away. But McGee tightened his grip and held on. The creature fought him desperately as it tried to regain its balance, but McGee pulled the blade away and threw it to one side.

Turning back he saw that the creature was backing away from him slowly, shaking its head slowly as it glared at him. It was looking less like Gibbs now. But then it rallied slightly and took a step forwards. Its features blurred and suddenly he was looking at himself, only clad in black and with yellow eyes.

"You're weak," the other version of him spat. "Jedi? You can't handle being a Jedi. This is what awaits you. Sith."

McGee looked at the other version of himself and then shook his head. "No," he said. "I am a Jedi. Never a Sith."

"Then strike me down. Kill me!"

McGee smiled slightly. "I don't need to. You're not a threat to me. You're nothing but a pale shadow of what you used to be in life."

The creature stared at him. And then it… faded. Suddenly McGee was back in the cave, facing a wall of rock. He looked around. There was nothing in here. So he turned and walked out. As he left the shadows of the cave he saw the other Jedi. They were standing in a half-moon formation, all facing him. Lindsey. Daniel. Rebecca. Oz. And Xander. The latter was wearing what appeared to be Jedi robes and had his lightsabre in his hand. As McGee approached the blue blade hummed into life.

"Timothy McGee, in the name of the Galactic Republic and the Terran Jedi Order, I hereby dub you Jedi Knight. Use your powers to help the innocent. Defend the weak. Protect those who need protecting."

McGee bowed his head, his eyes filled with unshed tears. "I do so swear."

Xander smiled at him. "Good. Now – you need a lightsabre."


	15. Chapter 15

The passageway was made from some kind of carved stonework. It was a bit hard to inspect as the only light was from the torches that he and Xander were carrying. He was quite glad of the lack of light in one respect though – he was sure that the occasional skittering noise in the far edges of his hearing were rats.

The closer they got to their destination the fewer rats he heard and by the time that they reached the door there were no rats at all. He wasn't sure why. He also wasn't sure why he could sense their destination using the Force.

Xander must have seen it in his face, because he smiled slightly. "Yeah, I know. I have no idea why. Oz has a theory that by using the Force to find the last sets of gems for lightsabres we're imbuing the place with the Force. Which is a good theory. We need to see where it takes us."

He leant against the doorframe. "I know where it takes you though. Inside. You do this part alone."

McGee took a deep breath and then walked through the doorway. At first glance he was in a cave that had been last owned by someone who'd started off with a gold fetish and had then seen it grow into total madness, with gold on gold, with more gold piled on top.

And amongst the gold were different colours. Gems. Hundreds, if not thousands of them. They varied from tiny ones to ones the size of his thumb. There was even a quartz crystal the size of his fist. He was about to open his mouth and ask Xander how he was going to do this when he had second thoughts and then closed it. Then he use the torch to find a clear spot on the floor to sit on. Once he was settled he closed his eyes and embraced the Force.

He'd been trying not to think about what colour his lightsabre would be for a while now. Now that he was here, on the cusp of it, he could actively consider it. Blue was the standard colour of the Jedi Guardian, who tended to be more physical. Green blades were used by Jedi Consulars, who tended to be a bit more cerebral about studying the mysteries of the Force.

And then there was a third type. The Jedi Sentinel. They combined combat and study with other skills, such as computers, stealth or medicine. And they were also known for their interest in justice. It was a perfect fit for him. And they used yellow lightsabres. Which meant that he needed a yellow gem.

He felt the room out using the Force. He could feel the various gems in it, the way that they felt in the Force. He could feel the echoes of possibilities all through the room. But he needed the gem that was perfect for him. Where was it?

Ah. He could feel it. It was… where? To his right? Yes. Just… there. He reached out with the Force and lifted the gem into the air. It felt… _right_. It was just the right size and was untainted by anything. Xander had warned him that some gems were used by magic users as focal points for spells, but had added that so far they hadn't discovered any in the room. The gem he'd found had no magic on it.

He held out his hand and then felt the gem slowly settle onto it. Then he opened his eyes. It was a yellow diamond the size of his thumb. And it was perfect. He stood up and walked back to the door. "I've got it," he said quietly, holding it up.

Xander looked at it carefully and then nodded. "Sentinel, huh? I figured as much. We haven't had a Sentinel yet. Oz likes healing a lot, but he's more into battling the Dark Side in all its aspects." He smiled at McGee. "Ok then. Time to build your lightsabre."

* * *

Of course that had been easier said than done. He'd worked on circuit boards before at MIT, but the ones for the lightsabre were, to put it mildly, a challenge. Abby would have drooled all over them, which would not have been a good thing. Oddly enough once he embraced the Force the work became a lot easier.

In the meantime he had to wait for the gem to be faceted correctly, so that it would focus the beam correctly. Xander and Oz had driven him to LA, where they'd visited a jeweller called Thorne who gave McGee a severe case of the heebyjeebies, probably because Thorne wasn't human. The third eye was a dead giveaway for a start. Thorne seemed to hold both Oz and Xander in great esteem, looked at him respectfully, inspected the gem he'd brought carefully, told him that the work would take a day or so and that had been it.

Oh and there had been the visit to a nightclub called Caritas. Tony would never have believed that place. McGee had met another demon, this one going by the name of The Host to the paying public or Lorne to his friends (who included Xander). The Host had looked at him with those oddly unthreatening red eyes and then looked at Xander. "Kenobi-kins you just keep finding them don't you!"

Xander had smiled and then gestured at Oz. "He's been training him. Do you need to read him?"

Again the silent inspection. Then The Host smiled. "Nope. He'll do good. He doesn't need to sing for me to tell you that."

"Sing?" McGee asked, puzzled.

"I can see the future kiddo. Auras. Empathy. What to avoid having for lunch in case it gives you heartburn. What not to do in case it kills you. Most people have to sing for me to read them properly. Some people – like Jedi these days – don't. I can tell you one thing though-" And then he leant over and whispered something in his ear. When he finished and straightened up again McGee was very close to blushing.

"Really?" he said.

"Tell her how you feel kiddo." Then he'd turned back to Xander and the conversation had veered off onto a different direction.

A day later he had his re-facetted gem and his circuit board, but was still lacking an important piece to the puzzle – a small enough superconductor that would complete it all. Oddly enough none of the other Jedi had been worried about how on Earth he was going to get his hands on such an advanced piece of technology.

The answer had come in the form of Graham. His cousin had knocked on the door to Mr Giles' office in the Library where McGee had been assembling the lightsabre not long after midnight. "I hear that you need a superconductor," Graham said with a grin.

"Yeah," McGee sighed as he looked down at the handle that was taking shape in his hands. "I don't have a clue where I'm going to get one though."

"Oh, I'm sure the Force will provide," Graham replied with a slightly po-faced expression on his face that meant that he was up to something. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a smallish box, which he placed carefully on the desk in front of McGee. "There you go."

McGee frowned and then opened it. Aha. A slim, technically advanced, superconductor. "Should I ask where this came from?"

"Where what came from?"

He looked at his cousin, who was looking placidly back at him. "Let me guess, Graham – you were never here?"

"I certainly was not," Graham grinned. Then he sobered. "I owe my life to the Jedi. The fact that you're now one of them makes me incredibly proud. So that thing that just appeared on your desk? Least I can do." And then he'd wandered off whistling.

And now Timothy McGee was left staring at the open hatch. This was what it had all come down to. He swung the hatch closed, felt it click securely into place then took a deep breath and picked it up. All the other Jedi were standing in a circle around him, on a hill top in Sunnydale. He looked up at the stars far above him and then he thumbed the activation switch.

The now-familiar sound of a lightsabre being activated reached his ears and he smiled quietly as he saw the yellow blade extend itself to the proper length. Then he heard the sound of other lightsabres being activated and he looked around at the blue and green blades that now cleaved the darkness.

And then as one those blades were lifted above the heads of the Jedi as the stars blazed down.


	16. Chapter 16

When McGee stopped talking there was a short silence. Which was, eventually, broken by Tony. Which wasn't much of a surprise to McGee.

"Wow," the older agent said in a voice that sounded as if he was still concussed. "You'd think that things couldn't get any weirder. But then it takes a 90 degree turn and whacks you on the back of the head like… like…"

There was a thwacking noise as Gibbs slapped the back of his senior field agent's head.

"…like that. Thanks boss."

"Any time DiNozzo. Any time." He looked back at McGee, who was standing there quietly. "So, you're a Jedi."

"Jedi Knight boss. So, yes."

Gibbs stared at him and McGee could see a multitude of questions rattling through his brain. Finally he seemed to settle on just one. "So what now?"

McGee raised his eyebrows for a moment. "Boss, I can be an NCIS agent and a Jedi Knight. I have been since I came back from Sunnydale. Just because you now know about it shouldn't change a thing."

Gibbs was still staring at him levelly and McGee stared back.

"What if these Jedi call upon you in the middle of a case?" Gibbs asked eventually.

"They probably won't – I'm the only Jedi on the East Coast so far. And they do, then you can bet that it'll be important – about as important as it gets."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "How important?"

"Oh, I suspect that it wouldn't be a case of keeping the USA safe – more like keeping the planet intact. Keeping humanity safe."

"Wow." Tony sounded… well as if he was experiencing five different emotions at once, none of which were making him in any way coherent. There was awe in there, incredularity, a dash of envy, some annoyance and finally whistfullness. Then he seemed to almost shake everything off and looked at McGee with a slightly manic gleam in his eyes. "Can… anyone… become a Jedi? I mean, I know that I'm a spiritual man, kind of, and I'm a Jedi Master of investigations so…"

Oh dear. McGee sighed slightly. "Sorry, Tony. I haven't sensed anything about you that hinted that you can use the Force."

Tony deflated visibly and then rallied slightly. "Oh. Ah well. The robes would probably chafe anyway."

There was the sound of someone taking a deep breath of air into their lungs and then Gibbs looked at him again. "My gut. Well?"

Ah. This was straying into dangerous territory. "Well Boss, I have kind of good news and I have… odd news. The kind of good news is that you're not a Jedi. The odd news is that you need to have a word with your dad about any… odd ancestors of yours. Because at least one of them was a magic user."

He could almost hear the hairs standing up on the back of Gibbs' neck. Then he waited for the explosion.

"_What?_"

"You heard me right Boss."

Gibbs rocked back on his heels as if he'd been tapped on the chin by a punch. Ok, a punch from a pensioner. "Oh," he said eventually. "Well, I wasn't expecting that."

It seemed that no-one else was either, judging by the stunned expressions on the faces around them both. Ducky was the first to recover, judging from the sudden grin and the way that he was suddenly rubbing his hands together. "Aha," he grinned, "It's been a while since I last had to teach magic to a, well, no offence Jethro, to a novice. It'll be quite the challenge."

Gibbs eyed the older man dubiously for a moment and then sighed heavily. "Ok, well, we'll work out a way to make this thing work. I hope." He turned back to McGee. "So, can you use this Jedi stuff on day-to-day cases?"

"Carefully boss, carefully. I wouldn't want to explain to a judge how we'd captured someone using the Force. Or got someone to confess using the Jedi Mind Trick. Besides, abuse of the Force, even with the best of intentions, can lead to-"

"The Dark Side," muttered DiNozzo with a knowing look on his face. "The road that leads to Vader. To Palpatine. To black robes and that breathing problem." He started to make Vader-like breathing noises, only to be stopped by a Gibbs-slap to the back of the head. "Shutting up again boss."

"Good," said Gibbs with a glare. Then, as he walked to the doors, he stopped. "Does Abby know any of this yet?"

McGee sighed. "Not yet boss. I will though, especially that you all know. Besides, she left a message that she needs to see me about some research she's been doing."

"See that you do, McGee, see that you do. Now, let's get back to work." And with that he swept out of the room.  
Tony, Ziva and Ducky all exchanged glances before looking back at Jedi. "Good luck," they chorused.

* * *

When McGee entered Abby's lab he was surprised by the lack of music. Then he saw that the black-haired Goth was asleep on an inflatable mattress on the floor, with a blanket over her and her stuffed Hippo, Bert, tucked in next to her.

McGee sighed. She'd obviously pulled another all-nighter, which was a bad thing. He looked around at the screens on the various desks and then frowned slightly. She'd been running some kind of statistical search on California. Ah. A specific place in California. Sunnydale. He looked wryly down at Abby. Ok, why had she been checking on the place after he'd returned from it?

He leant over quietly and stared at the screen. Oh, he could tell that she'd have some questions about the place. The death stats for Sunnydale were horrific. Not so much in the past few years though, thanks to the combined efforts of Slayers and Jedi.

One of the machines behind him beeped slightly, possibly because it was running a diagnostic and then suddenly Abby was awake. She sat up, blinking wildly and clutching Bert against her chest, making the stuffed toy fart feebly.

"Oh! McGee! When did you come in?"

"Just now, Abs. I didn't want to wake you. I think that Major Mass Spec just finished a diagnostic."

"Yeah," she mumbled as she put Bert down and then got up and stretched. "Need to make sure that he's working properly."

He nodded and then inclined his head at the screen. "So Abby. Sunnydale?"

She froze slightly. "Oh. Ah. I need to talk to you about that place. You must never, ever go there again."

"Why not?"

"Are you insane McGee? Have you seen the stats for accidental deaths at that place? For people who were attacked by wild animals, or who stabbed themselves in the neck with BBQ forks, or who just vanished? True, the stats have gone down quite a bit in recent years, but that might just be a statistical anomaly." From the way that she waved her hands he could tell that she thought that the recent drop was down to said statistical anomaly.

"Abby…"

"So it's a dangerous place and I should have checked out the long-term stats before you went there so I could have warned you against going there. So you can't go back there. Just because you weren't hurt in some freak accident the blast time you went there, that doesn't mean that you won't he hurt or even killed in some freakish, freakish accident the second time – oh and you need to warn your cousin about the place! I mean he lives there and the chances of something happening to him are so horribly short that you might as well send flowers now and-"

"Abby!"

She paused and blinked at him. "What?"

"I know all about Sunnydale and the risks of the place. So does Graham. He works with a group that's making the place safer. And there are other friends we have there.

Abby frowned slightly. "You know?" Then a look of abstracted calculation crossed her face. "And you have friends there?"

McGee tilted his head slightly and then looked at her. She had some… interesting friends. Perhaps a hint? "Abby, Sunnydale had another name once. Boca del Inferno."

The reaction from Abby was immediate. She froze in place. "Sunnydale is Boca del Inferno?" The question was asked in a small voice that was one long wince.

"Yes."

There was a slight pause as Abby walked in a small circle, her brain almost audibly whirring. Then she seemed to come to a decision as she turned to face him. "McGee, I need to tell you something. It'll sound completely insane and you'll think that I've gone crazy, but it's all true and it's for your own good. McGee… um… you see…"

"Abby are you about to tell me about vampires? Because I already know. Demons too. And I know that Sunnydale is a hellmouth."

He'd never seen a completely deflated and taken aback Abby before and the sight was interesting. "You… you know about hellmouths? And vampires?"

"Yes Abby."

She opened her mouth for a moment and then closed it again. "Oh," she said. "Ah." Then she rallied. "So you know why you can't go back there? Because of how dangerous it is!"

"It's less dangerous than it used to be, Abs."

Abby wrung her hands together. "But Tim…"

"Abby, have you ever heard of the Slayer?"

She looked at him as if he was raving mad. "Maybe. It's a hinky legend."

"No she's not. And she lives in Sunnydale. With friends."

Abby visibly processed this. "What kind of friends are we talking about here? Magic-using friends?"

"Some of them use magic, yes. Others… use something else."

"What kind of something else?"

"Well… they're a great bunch of people. And they can use the Force. Because they're Jedi."

She just looked at him for a very, very, long moment. Then she looked at the phone. "Ok. Right. So we need to call up Ducky and then tell him that you have concussion. Or something. Cool as it would be for real live actual Jedi to exist, they're still fictional."

"Abby I've met them. They exist."

She laughed caustically. "Yeah, right. Did they tell you that they were working on their lightsabres? Because you know that they're impossible with current technology, right? And the idea of the Force is just-"

He interrupted her by pulling out his own lightsabre and placing it quietly on the desk next to him. She looked at him exasperatedly. "Oh, very nice prop there, McGee! Is your real one in the mail? Is that what they told you?"

He picked it up again, grabbed a pen from a pot to one side and then looked at her. "How many pieces do you want me to chop this into?"

Abby stared at him. "You're serious."

"Yes."

"Ok – five."

He thumbed the activation switch, threw the pen in the air and then sliced at it in the grip of the Force. A millisecond later he deactivated the lightsabre and looked at Abby as five shards of pen clattered onto the floor.

If the previous silence had been long, then the present one drabbed out for an eternity. Finally Abby pulled herself together enough to point a shaking finger at the weapon in his hand.

"That…. That's… a lightsabre. A real, working, lightsabre."

"Yes it is."

"That's… not… possible… But you have a lightsabre. That works. Does not compute!"

"As I said, they're a great bunch of people. And they have access to some very interesting equipment. Which is how I was able to build it."

Abby looked at the lightsabre and then back at McGee and then back and forth several times, before finally refocusing on McGee. "Why didn't you tell me when you came back?" she asked in a very small voice.

"I was trying to break it to you gently," he said ruefully. "I wanted to tell you, but it was hard finding an easy way to do it. Problem was, the right time never seemed to turn up."

"But you're telling me now. Why now?"

"Because last night I saved two kidnapped female petty officers from a warehouse full of vampires led by an lunatic master vampire who wanted to use their blood to summon demons. And guess whose team investigated the kidnapping?"

"Gibbs?" Abby squeaked. "He knows then?"

"Well, Tony cut his finger on some barbed wire near the warehouse and he accidentally got some in the summoning circle. So I had to intervene with my lightsabre to save Gibbs and Tony from a large and rather unpleasant demon. Ziva was just outside. So they all know now. As does Ducky, because he had to check out Tony's head after he got knocked out by the demon. And by the way, Tony's just fine, I healed him myself."

"Right," said Abby as she pushed him back onto the chair. "Tell me everything."


	17. Chapter 17

I rewrote this bloody chapter twice as I wasn't happy with it at all. Anyway, here's the last chapter and the end of what has been a hell of a ride. A big thanks to everyone who's commented on this little story of mine. Now I need to go back to the next chapter of the Terran Jedi! And I do not own these characters...

* * *

_Six months later _

DiNozzo was panting slightly as he rounded the corner and then faced the assembled NCIS agents. "I'm back boss," he gasped rather redundantly and then paused to get his breath back. "But there's good news and bad news."

"What's the good news?" Gibbs asked as he peered around the corner with a small periscope at the warehouse.

"Selim's in there. And he has the remote to that bomb that's he's smuggled in. That's the good news."

"And the bad news?"

"He's been recruiting in the dirtier lower depths of the local underworld. I counted six vampires and some kind of giant armoured demon thing. Plus a really scared looking guy who looked quite like Selim."

"Probably his brother, who's supposed to be smarter." Gibbs folded the periscope up carefully. "Well, at least this makes things a little simpler. Good thing that Fornell's crew are checking out that other suspected location. Poor bastard doesn't know about vampires yet." He looked at DiNozzo. "Where's McGee?"

DiNozzo shrugged slightly. "He said he needed to get a better look at the place from on high boss. I guess that means that he did that whole Jedi leap thing up to the roof."

"Yeah well, Ziva's due to report in herself from the far side. I want to make sure that those other doors really are bricked up. If we go in fast because this nutjob's threatening to explode his dirty bomb I want to catch all the rats in one trap."

"Um, boss, how are we going to explain the vampires and the demon to the Director?"

"Leave that to me, DiNozzo, leave that to me." His phone chose that moment to buzz and he pulled it out, peered at the caller ID and then answered it. "Talk to me McGee."

"Boss, I'm on the roof and I have a clear line of sight through a slat on Selim and his remote. He's got it on the bench in front of him. If he goes near it and looks like he's about to press anything on it I'll use the Force to pull it up and out of his hands."

Gibbs grinned for the first time that morning. "Good. Stay there and stay sharp Tim. The moment we know that we have all the holes stopped up we're going in."

"Copy that boss. Once the remote's in my hands I'll join the party. Be aware that I'm on the North part of the roof."

"North side, I hear you." He disconnected and then looked around. "Ok, McGee's in place." Then he turned his head to see Ziva join them. She'd run twice the distance that Tony had but looked as fresh as a daisy. "Well?"

"The bricked-up doorway is indeed bricked up Gibbs. No concealed entrance there. Where do we stand?"

"McGee's on the roof with a clear line of sight to Selim and the remote control that detonates the bomb he built. But according to DiNozzo Selim's got some heavies in there. Undead heavies – vampires and some kind of armoured demon. Plus his brother's in there."

Ziva pursed her lips for a moment in thought. "Then we're going in hard I take it? McGee can take the remote out and we can all then deal with them all." She pulled out her sidearm and ejected the ammunition clip, before replacing it with a reserve one from her pocket. "Time for 'Razzle-Dazzle' as you say Tony."

"Razzle-dazzle it is," DiNozzo grinned as he reloaded his own sidearm with a similar clip, composed of incendiary, explosive and armour-piercing rounds that only came out when they were dealing with the undead. Then he reached into his other pocket and pulled out a glass globe filled with a clear liquid. "Plus one of Abby's little surprises."

Gibbs looked at the globe, rolled his eyes slightly at Abby's latest brainstorm before reloading his own gun. He then held his hand out palm-upwards. After a moment of hard concentration a small fireball appeared in the hollow of his hand. Heh. Ducky would be proud of him, although he'd probably also criticise the amount of time it had taken to produce. "Right. Let's go save the city."


End file.
